That's not the info that is circulating lately, that's what the Irish revenue would love to keep but an in depth analysis of the issue seems to suggest that the whole thing will have to be paid in Italy.
This new approach is based on several pieces of evidence like the concept of "base",the concept of "effective management", the concept of "international operations", the definition of "employee", the law about "contract workers" and a few other bits of Italian legislation.
Just to give you an idea it seems that in order to comply with just social security any business activity must have a local office or branch through which it employs its workers, consequently these workers must have an Italian contract....and so on.
Unfortunately I had to make a lot of research on this matter, working myself for a foreign company (EU based) operating in another EU country. Not FR.
Disregarding the big mess that is the whole employed/self employed thing in FR (de facto we can consider them employed, being per contract not allowed to freelance for anyone else), when it comes to INCOME TAXES, between most of EU country there are bilateral agreements to avoid double taxation. They are valid for all kind of income subject to taxes, including salaried employees and self employed people, in aviation and not.
In particulat between Italy and Ireland, see link
http://www.fiscooggi.it/files/immagi...irlanda-it.pdf
The article 14.3 specify that for people employed on board of planes and ships, the salary is taxed where the headquarter of the company is situated, in this case Ireland. Italy is not discussing on that.
Another matter is the social security.
The new EU Reg 465/2012 is very clear in this, but also before that it was already applicable: the social security needs to be paid where the worker is based. In Italy the social security is roughly 25/30% of the gross salary on the employer, and about 10% on the worker. Having paid that you have the right to use all the Italia security system, including public health system (free in Italy), unemployment benefits, maternity and sick leave, state pension etcetera. In Ireland the social security is much lower, especially for non resident.
In conclusio it is very common and legal to be in the condition to pay the income taxes in one country and the social security in another country.
Having said that FR employees have "enjoyed" their salaries with the very low irish social security contributions.
No doubt that FR will now modify the contract in such a way that they have to fork out, between the worker and italian state, the very same amount of money they are spending now. No way they are gonna have their profits reduced after all...
The difference will be absorbed by the worker, that means for the pilot a paycut of more or less a 25/30%.
Not necessary only a bad thing, especially for those who want to continue to work in Italy or have a story of contribution in Italy: the Italian pension system is actually one of the best in Europe, despite the latest modifications, ad the same goes for the unemployment benefits and similar stuff.