Current drama unfolding in my life, as I understand it.
I would like for someone to explain the following Italian BS to me:
- When transferring vehicle ownership from one person to another, you have to pay circa 300 euros in expensive taxes. But if the owner is dead, well then to transfer (required), you have to pay an extra expensive tax. Because they are dead. Why? Is this some sort of government punishment for dying?
- If you pass ownership from husband (deceased) to wife (living), the car insurance premium will remain the same, because you passed it within the same family. Even if the wife is elderly and has no driving licence and cannot legally drive the car.
- It only costs around 80 euro to demolish the car, and so therefore saving the 600 euros in taxes needed to make it yours. So now since you have to legally transfer ownership, by either selling (to a family member or stranger) or demolishing, it becomes a matter of deciding really how much the car is worth.
- No one seems to know exactly what papers are needed, or the paper you were told were needed turns out not to be valid, even though you spent money on the marca da bollo taxes to make it official, just like you were told by the town official who works in the town hall of your town, and should know what the hell she is doing, right? Alas, no.
- Why is it so damn hard to navigate this rotten soup of bureaucracy?
- Why don't the italians do something about this system? Are they all asleep on their feet?
I would love to offer suggestions, but I admit that trying to make sense of this convoluted system gives me a headache. I have no idea where to start. It is so entangled. Venting is much easier, I know.
Italy, you are beautiful, I love you, but sometimes I wish I were here only for a vacation.
Tammy