imposta municipale unica
When I read in an update from Clare Galloway that her house was so inexpensive she paid no property tax, I immediately wondered how that could be. It turns out that for ordinary folks like us, the Italian system is amazingly simple.
In Italy, property tax (for real estate at least) is called IMU - imposta municipale unica (it used to be ICI). The problem with getting a handle on what one might pay lies in the fact that the base number is something called "rendita catastale" - a notional "rent" that might be obtained from the property. In many cases this number is very low and it can be reduced further if the house is in a mountainous area or a depopulated town.
Once you've got the rendita catastale for your property, calculating the tax is simple:
