The full list of proposed Committee Stage Amendments to Finance Bill 2014 has been published. The Oireachtas Finance Committee will debate and vote on the proposed amendments later this week.
The amendments proposed by the Minister for Finance include:
- CAT agricultural relief: An amendment to the definition of ‘farmer’ and the introduction of a qualification criterion (items 83 & 85).
- CGT farm restructuring relief: The definition of agricultural land which can qualify for CGT farm restructuring relief is being restricted to exclude buildings on the land (item 66).
- Exchange of financial information: A new Section 25 has been added to the Bill to empower Revenue to make Regulations to give effect to the OECD’s Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (item 56).
- Gifts for support, maintenance or education: The CAT exemption in Section 82 CATCA 2003 is being extended to include permanently incapacitated persons (item 81).
- 626B participation exemption: An amendment has been made which deals with the interaction of S626B and S590 TCA 1997 (item 64).
- Company residence: The amendment concerns the date of application of the new company residence rules in cases where there has been a change in ownership and a major change in the nature and conduct of the business of the company.
- SARP: The formula for calculating relief in the first and last year of claim has been amended.
- GAAR: The section clarifies the right to appeal a Revenue enquiry or Revenue assessment in protective notification cases.
- Mandatory reporting: Where a person is a marketer of a transaction that “it would be reasonable to consider is a disclosable transaction” and the promoter has not provided a transaction number to the marketer within the required period, the marketer is required to provide certain information to Revenue.
- Stamp duty and farmland: The minimum period of lease of certain farmland in order to qualify for relief under section 66 has been changed from 5 to 6 years. Section 69 which amended Schedule 1 of the Stamp Acts has also been rewritten.
- Retirement benefits: A number of changes have been made to Section 17 of the Bill which makes amendments to pensions legislation.
- DIRT: DIRT relief for “first-time” buyers has been extended to “self-builds”.