Section 739J(3) TCA 1997 obliges investment limited partnerships (ILPs) to file a statement annually using Form ILP1. The filing deadline for Form ILP1 in respect of the year of assessment 2022 is extended to 14 September 2023. A new version of the Form ILP1 is now available on the Collective investment vehicles webpage, in the Related Forms panel of the Revenue website and should be used for filings in respect of the year of assessment 2022. As noted on page 1 of the Form ILP1, filing should be completed electronically and returned to Revenue via MyEnquiries to largecasesdiv@revenue.ie. The Form ILP1 has been updated by the addition of the following panels: Name of Signatory in plain text; Net Asset Value of the ILP at the end of year of assessment; General Overview of business activities carried out by the ILP in the year of assessment; Details of any Material Transactions carried out by the ILP in the year of assessment; Details of any transactions entered into with persons connected with any partner in the ILP in the year of assessment; Disclosure of Assets held by ILP at end of year of assessment (which includes disclosure of asset type, location, and value); and Detailed guidance notes attached to the updated Form ILP1 to assist completion of the statement, including practical examples illustrating level of detail required.

Revenue has amended Chapter 27 of the Pensions Manual which deals with the taxation of retirement lump sums to provide further information on the tax and filing obligations for excess lump sums. Instructions are included as to when Revenue Payroll Notifications and the Form 790AA should be submitted, and the details required.

Revenue has updated its Tax and Duty Manual titled “Guide to Exchange of Information under Council Directive 2011/16/EU, Ireland’s Double Taxation Agreements and Tax Information Exchange Agreements and the OECD/Council of Europe Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters”. The updated manual now includes an appendix with details of the exchange agreements Revenue has in place under various Automatic Exchange of Information frameworks.

Revenue has published a new Tax and Duty Manual to provide general guidance on how new EU reporting obligations for platform operators will operate in Ireland. The Council Directive 2011/16/EU (DAC) which provides for the automatic exchange of information between the tax administrations of EU Member States was amended by Council Directive (EU) 2021/514 (DAC7) in 2021 to extend the scope of the existing DAC provisions. With effect from 1 January 2023, DAC7 obliges certain platform operators to collect and automatically report information on certain sellers using their platform to earn consideration. It is intended that the information obtained will assist Member States in addressing the tax challenges posed by the platform economy.

Revenue has published an updated Tax and Duty Manual on EU sanctions in response to the situation in Ukraine to include updated legislative references (paragraph 2), details of the 11th sanctions package (paragraph 4), and advice on the circumvention of sanctions (paragraph 6).

Revenue has updated the Tax and Duty Manual regarding rent-a-room relief to include material on the rent tax credit (in paragraph 7.2). In addition, obsolete material on owner occupier relief under certain property-based tax incentive schemes and relief from stamp duty for first time buyers and certain owner occupiers have been deleted.

Revenue has updated the Tax and Duty Manual regarding the treatment of certain patent royalties paid to companies that are resident outside the State. The updates in paragraph 5 clarify the notification requirements for companies availing of the administrative practice set out in the manual.

Revenue has updated the Tax and Duty Manual on relevant contracts tax (RCT) for subcontractors to include a new section 9 which deals with the incorrect operation of RCT by a Principal.

Ireland is committed to introduce legislation applying to outbound payments to prevent double non-taxation. The Department of Finance intends to fulfil this commitment via legislation in Finance (No.2) Bill 2023. Building on a previous public consultation, the Department of Finance has published a feedback statement seeking views from stakeholders on the possible draft legislative approach to achieve the objectives. The consultation period runs until Tuesday 8 August 2023. Any member wishing to contribute to this consultation can provide their feedback here.

Revenue has informed us that it intends to issue a notice to taxpayers who registered for Corporation Tax and have not filed Corporation Tax returns for years up to and including 2021. The notice is a Level 1 Compliance Intervention in accordance with Revenue’s Compliance Intervention Framework. Notices are expected to issue in the coming days, via Revenue’s online system (ROS) and by post, to taxpayers with outstanding corporation returns and their agents. Revenue has noted that the non-filing of a required tax return can result in a more detailed review by Revenue and is a prosecutable offence. The late filing of a return for Corporation Tax may result in the restriction of certain reliefs.

Last week, the Government published its Summer Economic Statement (SES) 2023. The document sets out the Government’s medium-term budgetary strategy and outlines the fiscal parameters within which discussions will take place ahead of Budget 2024.  On the basis that inflation, though easing, is expected to remain high, Government is adjusting its fiscal parameters for Budget 2024. To protect public services, core spending will now increase by 6.1 percent next year. Over the medium term (2025-2026), as inflationary pressures moderate, core expenditure growth will return to 5 per cent per annum. Budget 2024 will provide an overall package of €6.4 billion, representing additional public spending of €5.2 billion and taxation measures amounting to €1.1 billion. Given significant capacity constraints in housing, healthcare, and other key public infrastructure, as well as an economy clearly at ‘full employment’, the Statement says that any spending beyond this would risk unnecessarily adding to inflationary pressures and overheating the economy. The statement does note that a key priority of taxation policy in the forthcoming budget will be to avoid workers paying additional tax simply because they move to the higher tax brackets due to wage growth. The Budget will be presented to Dáil Éireann on 10 October 2024. Commenting on the document, Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, Paschal Donohoe T.D., said: “Today’s publication of the Summer Economic Statement outlines our budgetary strategy for 2024. In planning the fiscal and budgetary response, the Government will continue with the balanced approach of supporting society while being conscious of fiscal sustainability and being mindful of the need to avoid adding to inflationary pressures. Our economy and people continue to show resilience, and this has helped us to respond to the challenges that we have faced over the past number of years.” Further information is available on gov.ie.

This week we bring you news of a new form which HMRC plans to launch over the summer to provide details of overlap relief for some taxpayers. A new form is now available for claiming the marriage allowance, and HMRC’s teams have responded to queries on VAT and the self-assessment online return form. A new compliance campaign has also been opened, and HMRC is contacting companies with an identified error in an R&D tax relief claim. HMRC’s latest News and Information Bulletin is also available. Overlap relief information request form At some point over summer 2023, HMRC aims to launch an online form for overlap relief requests as part of the move to basis period reform. The Institute, in its response to the basis period reform consultation in summer 2021, recommended that HMRC provide this information to taxpayers where it was held in its systems. Any unincorporated businesses with a non-31 March or 5 April accounting period end are able, in the transitional tax year 2023/24 of basis period reform, to use an unused overlap relief carried forward. This is particularly important as any profits not already assessed for tax must be included in the assessment for 2023/24 but can be reduced by unused overlap relief. HMRC will only be able to provide this information if it has been recorded in HMRC’s systems and included within submitted self-assessment returns for previous tax years. If these details have not been recorded, HMRC intends to provide data to allow the taxpayer (or their agent) to calculate any unused overlap relief from the relevant self-employment data it does hold, and which is available in HMRC’s systems. Requests for overlap information can be made ahead of the launch of the form. The following information is required to do so:- taxpayer name; national Insurance Number or unique taxpayer reference; name/description of the business; sole trader or partnership; partnership UTR, if relevant; date of commencement (if not known, tax year of commencement); and, most recent accounting period end date. New marriage allowance postal claim form HMRC has published a new form which allows taxpayers to apply for the marriage allowance by post. This allowance can now be claimed online, via a postal application, or by a claim in the self-assessment return. Previously, it was only possible to apply by post via letter. VAT query HMRC’s VAT team was asked whether a reason can be provided when a flat rate scheme application is denied. Details of a direct contact in order to appeal the decision was also sought. HMRC’s response is as follows:- “If the decision to disallow the customer from joining the Flat Rate Scheme is appealable, then the Decision Maker will have advised the customer who to contact to appeal within their decision letter. If there are no contact details within the letter, this would be because the decision is not appealable. However, the customer may be able to get some information about why they were disallowed from joining the scheme from frsapplications.vrs@hmrc.gov.uk.” Self-assessment online form query HMRC was asked if the “for reference only” text on the Self-Assessment return (SA 100) could be removed as previously HMRC had confirmed that SA100’s printed from the GOV.UK page and posted are being accepted by HMRC hence the “for reference only” text is causing some confusion. HMRC responded as follows:- “We have noted the concern about the “for reference only” messaging and we will consider this as we monitor and review the changes to the SA100 gov.uk pages. On the SA100 forms page, there is a link explaining how to request a paper return. The link appears immediately underneath the SA100 forms in the ‘Details’ section of the page. It connects to the Self-Assessment forms ordering service rather than the SA helpline.”  New compliance campaign launched HMRC has recently launched a new compliance campaign targeting taxpayers named in the Pandora Papers. The campaign letter invites them to make use of the contractual disclosure facility or the worldwide disclosure facility and reminds taxpayers that penalties of up to 200 percent may be charged on the tax due on any overseas income and gains not declared. Since publication of the papers, HMRC has been using information to identify UK taxpayers who may have taxable income or gains they have not declared.  R&D tax relief compliance checks follow ups We understand from HMRC’s R&D sub-group forum that HMRC has been writing to/emailing around 200 companies who have made an error in recent R&D tax relief claims asking them to complete a questionnaire providing feedback on their experience of the compliance check process. All responses to the questionnaire will be anonymised and personal details held securely. All recipients of this contact were part of HMRC’s recent mandatory random enquiry programme. The questionnaire aims to help HMRC understand why the errors occurred and feedback will be used to inform HMRC processes, with an overall aim of help companies get R&D claims right first time.