Finance Act 2017 was signed into law by the Irish President on 25 December 2017. One important anti-avoidance amendment introduced by FA 2017 relates to what constitutes a distribution for Irish tax purposes. It is widely believed that the provisions of this amendment could impact adversely on the feasibility of several important categories of corporate transaction, including management buy-outs ("MBOs"), corporate restructurings and other means by which investors and busines

Finance Act 2017 introduced a new tax-advantaged share scheme in Ireland known as the “Key Employee Engagement Programme” (KEEP). KEEP is an employee share option scheme aimed at helping SMEs to recruit and retain employees in Ireland. Unlike share options granted and exercised under standard share option legislation, the KEEP scheme contains the following tax advantages: • there is no income tax on a grant of a qualifying share option; • there is no income tax or emplo

The due date for the filing of returns of information in relation to employee share participation schemes for the 2017 tax year is 31 March 2018. The return is to be filed using the electronic Form RSS1 which can be downloaded here. Once the spreadsheet is populated, it can be uploaded through Revenue’s Online System (ROS). Awards which have been subject to PAYE through payroll operations are not required on the Form RSS1. In addition, a separate mandatory filing is required

The Finance Bill 2016 proposed amendments to the Dwelling House Relief. We summarise the effect of these amendments.