Attribution of the Tax Code to Undocumented Foreign Minors
One of the fundamental documents to access various services provided on the Italian territory is the tax code. It is an identification code assigned to each citizen at the moment of birth for tax purposes: this document is used by the Internal Revenue Service to check important data for the Italian tax authorities. It is also needed by the individual in order to proceed, for example, in entering a deed of sale, opening a bank account, purchasing a vehicle, collecting a payment, getting a tax refund, and, perhaps most important of all, accessing national health care.
As we mentioned earlier, the tax code is automatically assigned to Italian citizens when the parents register the birth at the registry office, but how does it work for foreign citizens?
Non-European citizens must apply by presenting a valid passport, a certificate of proof of identity issued by the consular authorities in Italy of the country of origin, and a valid Residence permit. During the period of storage in which the document has yet to be delivered to the applicant, the Internal Revenue Service issues a provisional certificate of allocation of the tax code.
Tax Code for unregulated and unaccompanied foreign minors
The Internal Revenue Service, with Resolution 25/E of June 2022, provides guidelines on how to allocate a tax code for this type of person: these new provisions implement the provisions of the January 2017 DPCM, which provides for enrollment in the National Health Service also for unregulated or unaccompanied foreign minors.
In order to obtain enrollment in the SSN, however, it is necessary to obtain a tax code, and for foreign minors, the request must be submitted by the ASL as it is considered a third party obliged to indicate the tax code of other subjects, as provided by Presidential Decree no. 605/1973: the request will then be made by the competent ASL through the use of form AA4/8, with the possibility of requesting the issuance of the tax code even for more than one minor in the same application, paying attention to the relevance of the data indicated on the form with those that will be used for the registration of minors in the National Health Service. Upon arriving at the generation of the tax code, it will be the ASL itself that will notify the person who has parental authority or the facility hosting the unregistered or unaccompanied minor.
The protection of the health of foreign minors in our country has its cornerstone primarily in the New York Convention-which requires states to guarantee minors essential rights, including precisely health care-as well as in the Italian Constitution, in this case in Articles 10 and 32. In order to have access to the fundamental right to health care, as we have seen, it is necessary to have a tax code, which today is easier to obtain for the most fragile categories, such as foreign minors on Italian territory.
