OC Consulting is the practice of Dott. Olindo Cervi, economist and IT systems specialist. We handle Italian accounting, tax returns, VAT and collection matters for people and companies whose interests are in Italy but whose lives are somewhere else, and we automate the repetitive part so that attention stays on the decisions that matter.
The rules that govern an Italian tax position are public, and most of them are not even complicated. What makes them hard to live with from abroad is that nothing tells you which of them apply to you, the deadlines are short and unforgiving, and every document arrives in a bureaucratic Italian that translates badly precisely where it matters most.
The result is familiar. A property is bought and the annual obligations that come with it surface two years later as a penalty. A company starts selling into Italy and discovers afterwards that it should have registered for VAT. An inheritance is opened and the Italian assets inside it sit untouched because nobody knows which office to file with.
None of these are disasters when they are caught early. Almost all of them become expensive when they are caught late, and lateness is the normal outcome when you are dealing with a system in a language you do not read.
The practice is first of all an economics and accounting office. The bookkeeping, the closings, the returns and the dealings with the authorities are carried out here, not passed on, and the person who explains your position to you is the person who prepared it.
Bookkeeping and its review, financial statements, the Italian personal and corporate returns, property taxes and the filings that non residents owe on Italian source income.
Direct VAT registration or a fiscal representative for businesses without a permanent establishment in Italy, plus the periodic returns, the electronic invoicing duties and the reporting that follows.
IMU, waste tax, rental income and the flat rate option on rents, and the Italian side of an estate: the succession filing, the cadastral transfer and the taxes attached to it.
Assessment notices and collection folders read properly: what is still enforceable, what has lapsed, what can be paid in instalments and what should be challenged.
Italian and European measures, checked against your actual accounts before an application is written, so that effort goes only where the requirements are genuinely met.
The repetitive part of administration handed to a supervised procedure, built out of duties we have had to perform ourselves and therefore aware of where a machine must not decide.
Dott. Olindo Cervi is an economist who spent years in information technology at IBM before building this practice. That combination is uncommon, and it is the reason the firm can sit between two worlds that normally do not speak to each other: the settled methods of Italian administration on one side, and on the other the tools, including artificial intelligence, that are changing how that administration is actually carried out.
In practice it means the automation proposed here is not sold as a product. It grows out of obligations the firm has had to discharge by hand, with their exceptions and their edge cases, and it stops exactly where a human judgement has to take over.
For a foreign client the practical benefit is simpler still: the same office reads the Italian notice, works out what it means for your position, and builds the procedure that stops the same problem returning next year.
The firm practises economics and accounting. It is not a member of the Italian association of chartered accountants and does not hold itself out as one.
The office is in Piazza Malpighi in Bologna, by appointment. The work itself is largely remote, and clients are spread well beyond Emilia-Romagna.
For matters that require a lawyer, the firm works with the law office of Avv. Paola Monaldi in Forlì, keeping the economic analysis and the legal representation clearly distinct.
Correspondence, meetings and explanations in your language. The filings themselves are in Italian, because they have to be, but you will always know what they say.
The last notice, the last return, the purchase deed, whatever you have. One real document says more than an hour of description.
What it means, what it obliges you to do, what the actual deadline is and whether anything is already at risk. In writing, in your language.
What the firm takes on, what stays with you, what it costs. Fixed where the work is predictable, agreed in advance where it is not.
Filings made on time, a calendar of what comes next, and the repetitive part progressively handed to a supervised procedure.
Usually yes. Property held in Italy produces Italian-source income even when it sits empty, and non residents are taxed on it here regardless of where they live. The return also carries IMU, the local property tax, and any rental income. Whether your own country then taxes the same income again depends on the double taxation treaty, and that is part of the work: we look at both sides before filing, not after.
Yes. A non resident can trade in Italy through direct VAT registration or through a fiscal representative, and the two routes carry different duties and different costs. We assess which one fits the activity, register it, and then run the periodic filings. If you are moving to Italy and starting an activity here, the question becomes which tax regime to elect, and the flat rate regime is not always the cheaper answer.
That is one of the main reasons clients come to us. Notices from the Agenzia delle Entrate and from the collection agency are written in a register that Italian taxpayers themselves find hard to read. We translate what it actually says, check whether the claim is still enforceable, and answer it within the deadline, which is usually much shorter than people expect.
No. The firm is an economics and accounting practice. When a file needs a lawyer, we work alongside the law office of Avv. Paola Monaldi in Forlì, and our part is the economic and accounting analysis that the legal work rests on. Keeping the two roles separate is deliberate, and it is what makes the analysis usable in front of a court or an authority.
Remotely, for almost everything. Documents travel through the client area of this site, meetings happen by video call, and filings are electronic anyway. The Bologna office is there when a meeting in person is the right choice, and it is by appointment only.
Bookkeeping, financial statements and the Italian returns a non resident owes.
Assessment notices, collection folders, instalments and time limits.
What happens between the first document and the filed return.
One document is usually enough to tell you where you stand, what the deadline really is and whether anything needs to happen this week. The first assessment carries no obligation and no fee.