Revenue has updated its guidance on termination payments with an additional example in paragraph 3.3.1. The example relates to unpaid protective leave and confirms that such leave does not constitute a gap or break in service when calculating complete years of service for the purposes of any potential relief available. The guidance also explains that protective leave includes carer’s leave, maternity leave, and parental leave.  

Revenue issued a press release last week confirming that Local Property Tax (LPT) returns and payments have been now made for over 1.9 million properties, as part of last year’s revaluation process. However, the statistics show that returns in respect of approximately 390,000 properties remain outstanding, albeit payment arrangements are in place in respect of 227,000 of these properties. Revenue is requesting all residential property owners who have not filed an LPT return to do so immediately. Revenue has advised that it will be writing to non-compliant property owners as part of its LPT compliance campaign. For property owners who have not yet made arrangements to pay their 2026 liability, a range of flexible payment options remain available including payment by direct debit or salary deduction over a reduced ten-month period, or alternatively a single annual deduction. Compliance letters will shortly issue to property owners in employment where a return has not been filed or where a payment arrangement is not in place. Property owners in this category will be given a two‑week deadline to submit their return and payment. If they fail to do so, Revenue will instruct their employer to begin deducting LPT from their employment income. Further correspondence will issue in due course to other categories of property owners. For the 227,000 property owners who have payment arrangements in place but have yet to file a return, Revenue is requesting these property owners to file their LPT return and update their valuation band as failure to do so will result in enforcement action. Revenue’s website includes an interactive valuation tool to assist property owners in assessing the value of their property which is intended as a guide only. We have outlined further relevant details in our earlier newsletter item. Updated property statistics are available on the Revenue website and includes the latest data for LPT, Vacant Homes Tax and Residential Zoned Land Tax.

In last week’s Tax Newsletter, we notified readers that we received an invitation to present before the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach as part of the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Finance (Tax Appeals and Fiscal Responsibility) Bill 2025. You can now watch that session in full here. The invitation was received following our submission to the Committee in December. In our opening statement and in response to the questions raised by the Committee, we highlighted two fundamental concerns with the proposals in Head 5 of the Revised General Scheme of Finance (Tax Appeals and Fiscal Responsibility) Bill 2025, being the protection of taxpayer privacy and the shifting of power too far toward the State. We expressed our unequivocal support for the protection of taxpayer privacy, and our position is that the right to elect for a private hearing should be preserved at the Tax Appeals Commission as a court of first instance. Tax appeals often involve deeply sensitive personal and financial information. For over a decade, taxpayers have had the right to request a private hearing at the TAC, with anonymised determinations still published to ensure transparency and accountability to the public. The legal principles underscoring a determination of the TAC are available to the public as it stands. Further, the nature of a Tax Appeal is that all information is provided at the outset of an appeal. A key reason for administering justice in public is to enable the public to provide information to ensure justice can be achieved. However, in the case of tax appeals, this requirement has already been satisfied by the legal obligations of taxpayers under the Tax Acts. There obligations demand complete transparency of all financial information to Revenue for the purposes of filing an accurate and complete tax return. We also expressed our grave concerns that shifting balance of power toward the State risks undermining the spirit of voluntary compliance that underscores the entire self-assessment model. Removing the taxpayer’s right to elect for a private hearing risks deterring compliant taxpayers from seeking independent adjudication of Revenue’s legal interpretations thereby eroding trust and transparency and undermining confidence in the overall appeals process.  Paradoxically, those who deliberately default may still protect their privacy where they are seen to cooperate with Revenue, while compliant taxpayers will now likely lose that right in most cases. The proposed amendments draw on the Supreme Court’s decision in Zalewski v the Workplace Relations Commission. However, that case involved an absolute ban on public hearings; the Tax Appeal Commission is already public by default. The proposals go far beyond what the Constitution requires—and in doing so, places taxpayer rights in the hands of a quasi-judicial body, rather than preserving the longstanding statutory protections afforded to compliant taxpayers. At a time when voluntary compliance underpins our self‑assessment system, it is vital that taxpayers retain a meaningful, reliable right to privacy in tax matters. The proposed amendments would significantly undermine that principle.

The guidance on the Cost of Living Accommodation Allowance for Representative Church Bodies has been updated to include details of the allowance for 2025 and to update relevant examples accordingly.

Revenue has published updated guidance on the Residential Premises Rental Income Relief (RPRIR) providing information on the availability of the relief and other credits for non-resident landlords. Section 1032 TCA 1997 provides that in certain circumstances a portion of personal credits, reliefs, and deductions, including the RPRIR are available for non-resident landlords. The guidance outlines that this portion is determined by the ratio of the Irish source income to the total income of the individual, and the taxpayer is required to complete the ‘Worldwide Income’ field on the ‘Personal Details’ panel of the Form 11.

Revenue has updated its guidance on the Incapacitated Child tax credit to reorganise the content and to provide additional clarifications on claiming the relief. The relevant updates are as follows: A new summary paragraph has been included to provide clarity on certain terms referred to in section 465 TCA 1997. Paragraph two addresses the timing of when the individual became permanently incapacitated. The following references have been removed from paragraph three: the criteria to provide a doctor's certificate or similar medical report, and maintaining for the purposes of the credit Paragraph five confirms that the incapacitated child tax credit is not available where a tax deduction for employing a carer for an incapacitated person has been claimed

Revenue has updated its guidance on submitting and managing queries submitted on MyEnquiries via ROS. The update (in paragraph 1.3) advises taxpayers that the dropdown menu option may not be available for some users. In these cases, Revenue advises that the system will automatically categorise the correspondence.

On 17 March 2026 Chancellor Rachel Reeves gave the Mais lecture at Bayes Business School. The lecture was delivered just two weeks after the Chancellor’s Spring Forecast speech on 3 March which had signalled that the Chancellor would be setting out more information on the UK economy and fiscal plans in her Mais lecture. With the sound of sirens continuing in the Middle East as the Chancellor spoke last week, the Chancellor set out three ‘big’ economic choices by the government and what actions the Government says it is taking to address these. The first of these choices is the news that the Chancellor will be pushing ahead with plans to develop a roadmap for future fiscal devolution which will be published at this year’s Budget. This will set out plans to give regional leaders control of a share of some national taxes which are currently allocated by central government. The roadmap will look at income tax, alongside other taxes, with reforms initially targeted at those places that have the greatest capacity to deliver them, and the greatest potential to benefit.  According to the Chancellor’s speech, reforms will be fiscally neutral and will focus on sharing and retaining a portion of existing revenues, with the proceeds of growth benefiting the places that generated that growth, whilst managing volatile receipts both for local areas and the Exchequer. At present it is unclear if this means more fiscal devolution for Northern Ireland. The Chancellor’s next big choice centred on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and set out details of what the Government’s overall strategy is which comprises the following four key strands and a range of actions tied to each: to build sufficient ‘compute’ to protect the UK’s interests and avoid excessive dependencies on others. This essentially means, for example, having sufficient data centre capacity to protect sensitive data, ensure resilience from global shocks, and support domestic adoption,  to establish the UK’s foothold and compete fiercely in the areas where the UK has real strengths, such as AI applications, AI chip designs, and cyber security, to maximise the value added by AI to the wider economy and the public sector through accelerated adoption, and to equip working people with the tools they need to maximise the rewards and minimise the risks.      The Chancellor’s final economic choice centred on how, in this age of insecurity, the UK’s economic, political, and military strength rests on strategic alliances, and in particular, how the UK’s fate as a country is inescapably bound with that of Europe. The Government has therefore chosen to ‘look towards a new and stable, future relationship’ with the EU. Where it is in the national interest to align with EU regulation, the UK should be prepared to do so, including in further areas of the single market, whilst also recognising that there may still be areas in which regulatory autonomy may be necessary for sectors with unique characteristics or strategic importance for the UK.   

Revenue has issued new guidance on the tax relief available for relevant donations to National Governing Bodies (NGBs) which sets out the criteria on what qualifies as an NGB together with details of the relevant definitions under section 847AA TCA 1997. The guidance outlines how both self‑assessed and PAYE‑only individuals can claim the tax relief including details and related deadlines regarding a donor’s decision to instead surrender the tax relief to an NGB. The relevant documentation requirements of NGB’s are also outlined together with information on the circumstances when relief will not be available.

Last week saw Finance Bill 2025/26 receive Royal Assent on 18 March 2026 to become Finance Act 2026. The Act enacts major legislation across a wide range of areas, many of which will take effect from next month. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be taking a look in Chartered Accountants Tax News at the key changes coming into operation next month as a result of the Act, when both the new Financial Year 2026 and tax year 2026/27 commence on 1 and 6 April 2026 respectively. In other legislative news, the National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill is now awaiting Royal Assent. Under the Bill, from April 2029, a primary and secondary Class 1 National Insurance Contributions (NICs) charge will be applied where employer pension contributions are made via salary sacrifice arrangements that exceed £2,000. The Bill will amend Section 4 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, and Section 4 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992, so that amounts of salary sacrificed for employer pensions contributions pursuant to optional remuneration arrangements are liable to Class 1 NICs. The Government has also published amendments to PAYE Regulations which provide for mandatory payrolling of employee benefits in kind, rather than annually through form P11D. The Income Tax (Pay As You Earn) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 will enter into force from April 1, 2026. However, the changes regarding the mandatory requirement regarding "payrolling" benefits in kind will not apply until 6 April 2027 onwards. The Regulations also remove the requirement for employers who have ceased trading to submit form P11D digitally. Instead, these employers can now choose whether to submit the return electronically or in paper form.

The chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Niall Cody, recently signed Statutory Instrument No. 85 of 2026, replacing the Taxes (Offset of Repayments) Regulations 2002. The replaced Regulations came into effect from 3 March 2026 and are made under section 960H(5) TCA 1997, which empowers Revenue to offset repayments due to a person against their outstanding liabilities. The new regulations remove or replace obsolete references, establish the order of priority of offset against liabilities, and provide for offset of several tax heads that have been legislated for since the 2002 Regulations were introduced.

Revenue has updated its guidelines for agents and customers regarding the agent e-linking process incorporating several revised screenshots and additional explanatory material. The update also includes links to further detailed guidance and how‑to videos on approving agent link requests. The following are the relevant revised screenshots: Figure 2, ‘Manage Tax Registrations screen in ROS’. Figure 13, ‘Client Link Requests dashboard screen – Pending Link’. Figure 16, ‘Client Link Requests dashboard - Approved Link’. Figure 17, ‘Date Completed view’. In addition, paragraph 2.1.1.2 describes the agent view when an agent link request has been approved, and paragraph 2.1.5 explains how agents or advisors can link to a deceased customer who was registered for ROS or myAccount.