Wealth repatriated to Italy under a recent tax amnesty will be subject to a one-off tax of 1.5 per cent, as part of austerity measures announced by the country’s new technocratic government.

The latest amnesty in 2009 recouped about $135 billion, 98 per cent of it from offshore centres, according to Ledbury Research, a UK research firm.

Prime minister Mario Monti’s €30 billion ($47 billion) package, made up of two-thirds of spending cuts and one third of tax increases, was announced to parliament yesterday and won the backing of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for promoting growth.

The OECD highlighted Italy's plans to reform its pensions system and slash tax for companies, but also to get tough on the wealthy: “The composition of measures…aims at addressing inequality with an emphasis on taxing wealth and luxury goods, and combating tax evasion,” said Angel Gurría, OECD secretary-general.

“Italy’s fiscal consolidation efforts will contribute significantly to strengthening the euro,” Gurría said. “The government can build on and further strengthen the fundamentals of the Italian economy so that the current difficult phase for the country and for Europe can be put behind us.”

Monti, the former European Commissioner with a background at Goldman Sachs, replaced Silvio Berlusconi at the end of last month, with a two-year mandate to push through reforms.

In the absence of economic growth, rounds of repatriation of wealth have contributed to the development of the wealth management industry in the country in recent years.

Steffen Binder, co-founder and managing director of MyPrivateBanking, has described the movement of wealth between Milan, Italy’s business hub, and Ticino, the Italian-speaking canton in Switzerland, as a Ping-Pong game.