Article 13 of the draft Omnibus Corrective Legislative Decree, approved by the Council of Ministers on 10 June 2026 and currently under parliamentary review, introduces amendments to the tax treatment of real estate transfers involving trusts.
Article 4-bis of Legislative Decree No. 346/1990
(Article 90 of Legislative Decree No. 123/2025, effective from 1 January 2027)
Current regime: taxation upon distribution / option for upfront taxation limited to inheritance and gift tax
General rule: Taxation upon distribution: inheritance and gift tax is levied upon the transfer of trust assets to the beneficiaries.
Optional regime: Upfront taxation: taxpayers may elect for taxation at the time the assets are transferred into the trust.
Under the current regime, the option for upfront taxation applies exclusively to inheritance and gift tax. Mortgage and cadastral taxes fall outside the scope of such election and, as a general rule, are therefore levied on a proportional basis upon the transfer of real estate from the trust to the beneficiaries (see Italian Revenue Agency, Circular No. 34/2022).
Overview of the current regime
As clarified by the Italian Revenue Agency in Circular No. 34/2022:
- mortgage and cadastral taxes are due in connection with the registration of deeds transferring ownership of real estate and the corresponding cadastral registrations;
- according to the settled case law of the Italian Supreme Court on trusts, transfers of assets into a trust merely serve the purposes of the trust and do not result in an actual transfer of wealth from the settlor to the trustee;
- an effective transfer of wealth through a definitive attribution of assets takes place only when the assets are distributed to the trust beneficiaries;
- accordingly, the registration and cadastral formalities relating to the transfer of real estate into a trust are subject to fixed mortgage and cadastral taxes of EUR 200 each, rather than proportional taxation (generally 3% or 4%).
Key takeaways: the option extended to mortgage and cadastral taxes
Under the proposed amendments, all the taxes concerned—inheritance and gift tax, mortgage tax and cadastral tax—may be paid upon the transfer of real estate into the trust through a single tax election.
This amendment achieves full coordination between the various indirect taxes applicable to real estate transfers involving trusts.
The subsequent transfer of real estate from the trust to the beneficiary will remain subject to mortgage and cadastral taxes (e.g. at the proportional rate of 3%), unless the settlor has elected to pay such proportional taxes upfront upon transferring the assets into the trust.
At present, however, the proposed legislation does not clarify whether the election must necessarily apply to all indirect taxes—namely inheritance and gift tax, mortgage tax and cadastral tax—or whether taxpayers may opt for different timing regimes for each tax. For example, it remains unclear whether it will be possible to apply inheritance and gift tax upon the transfer of real estate into the trust while deferring mortgage and cadastral taxes until the subsequent transfer of the assets from the trust to the beneficiaries.
Despite this coordination measure, several issues concerning the application of indirect taxes to the different trust structures remain unresolved.