Batsignal to @Malaysia41 @Hula Hoop
I'm sure there are other forum members who are or have been living in Italy.
/cracks knuckles/ where to start?
If you want to find jobs here, my understanding is you'd need to make a special case to the Italian Embassy. Usually they grant visas for students, political asylum seekers, catholic nuns, catholic priests, relatives of Italian citizens, people getting married to Italian citizens, or workers where a company is sponsoring you and making a decent case for why you need to be here. Otherwise, you need to prove financial independence to get a residenza elettiva visa (elective residence). And judging by our experience, the bureacrats are not accustomed to people with residenza elettiva visas. When we applied, the guideline was that you needed 31,000€ income per adult. There was no wealth requirement - only income. If you are able to work in Italy at a job based in the US, I would think you can use the income from that job for a residenza elettiva. It's probably doable.
Residenza E. visa requires that we not work in Italy. I believe there are some waivers for small-time gigs like teaching yoga or spin classes where you make just a few thousand a year. But for me, non interessante. If you were from another EU country, I believe getting a job would be much easier. But if you are American, I don't think you're going to get much help, or sympathy or consideration from the state.
So if you were able to get a residenza elettiva visa, and then get your permesso di soggiorno (permit to stay) and then get your carta rezidenza (residence card), (and become a tax resident), at that point I believe you could enroll your kid in Italian public school for free. Schools here are pretty good. The medical system is good too - we pay about 4,000€ per year for full health coverage for our family of three.
Taxes are stiff. It's a progressive schedule that rises way faster than in the US. I just filed US taxes today. We owed $219 taking standard deductions. The trick is using schedule E for deducting expenses related to our CA house.
$219!!!!. The US tax structure is SWEET for living off of capital and as a non-resident. On the other hand, I expect our Italian tax bill will be somewhere between 6,000€ and 10,000€. OMG it better not be more. (well, 6,000minus219 to 10,000minus 219 - we've got a tax treaty with Italy - like it matters when US taxes are $219).
I kept thinking about how nice it would be to retire and then move over there, hang out at the cafes, drink too much wine and eat delicious food all the time. then we talked about it and thought "why the hell wait till we're old?"
You just described my past weekend! Went out with friends, hung at the local cafe, moved on to another cafe, drank too much wine, but didn't eat much - ironically this girl moves to freaking Italy and then goes totes vegan and only a few cafes here 'get' what vegan means - Ziga cafe and La Lanterna to be specific - but I digress.
I wrote a whole thing about how people are the similar everywhere. But well, it felt very cliche. Any other questions about Italy?