Revenue has issued a press release providing an update on the filing status of 2025 Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT) returns which confirms that approximately 1,800 returns for 2025 have been submitted to date, with close to €40 million in liabilities paid. The 2025 RZLT filing deadline was previously extended to 31 May 2025 to provide taxpayers with additional time to comply with the new registration and filing obligations. Site owners who qualify for an exemption or deferral from RZLT are still required to file a return to claim the relevant exemption or deferral. RZLT returns filed late are subject to surcharges, ranging from 10 percent to 30 percent of the annual RZLT liability. The applicable surcharge rate is based on the length of the filing delay.   In the press release, Revenue is urging site owners who are liable to RZLT and who have not yet filed a return, or not yet paid their RZLT liability to act promptly to avoid any further surcharges applying.

Last week, the Institute launched its position paper calling for the activation of powers to implement a reduced rate of corporation tax for Northern Ireland. In a time of global economic turbulence and increasing competition for foreign direct investment (FDI), Northern Ireland holds a unique position with dual access to both the UK and EU markets. However, the Institute’s view is that this perceived advantage is being undermined by a corporation tax rate that is currently double that of the Republic of Ireland. You can read the full press release here.

As the deadlines for reporting employee share transactions and benefits in kind approach next month, HMRC is holding a range of useful webinars for employers over the coming weeks. Trivial benefits Register for this webinar about trivial benefits which looks at: what a trivial benefit is, what conditions have to be met to be exempt from reporting to HMRC, examples of trivial benefits scenarios, what responsibilities employers have, and record keeping requirements. Social functions and parties Register for this webinar about social functions and parties, during which the following will be covered: the conditions for the event to be exempt from tax and national insurance contributions (NICs), what to do if it’s not exempt, and PAYE Settlement Agreements and how to apply. More information on PAYE Settlement Agreements is available on HMRC’s YouTube channel. Phones, internet and homeworking For information on phones, internet and homeworking, register for HMRC’s webinar which will provide an overview of the tax and NICs treatment where an employer: provides a mobile phone, reimburses the use of a personal mobile phone, provides broadband in an employee’s home, or pays towards it, and provides homeworking expenses to its employees. You can also view previously recorded webinars on a range of related employer areas.

Revenue has confirmed that,from 30 June 2025, agents will receive details of clients who have been issued with a demand notice or a final demand notice. The Institute, under the auspices of CCAB-I, has previously engaged with Revenue under the TALC Collections forum on this change.   Notifications will be generated to the agents ROS inbox on Monday mornings if a client has been issued with a demand notice in the previous week or if they are to receive a final demand notice that day. An agent may receive two separate notifications where relevant. Notifications will have a priority message flag, which will be highlighted by the gold star that appears in the last column on the right of the agent’s ROS inbox. The agent notification list will show details of the client(s), overdue taxes and the date of issue of the demand/final demand notice. Revenue has also provided information and relevant screenshots from ROS, which are available in this document ROS Agent Notification for Demand and Final Demand. 

In this week’s miscellaneous updates, The Treasury Committee has written to HMRC’s CEO about its handling of the recent loss of £47 million after taxpayer phishing scams, The High Court has held that VAT on private school fees is not a breach of children’s human rights, The Adam Smith Institute says that ‘Tax Freedom Day' was on 12 June this year and is coming later and later every year due to fiscal drag, The Government has announced that fuel payments for winter 2025/26 will be made to all pensioners. If income exceeds £35,000, HMRC will recover the full amount of the payment through PAYE or self-assessment. The position in relation to Northern Ireland will follow the same rules and was confirmed in an announcement from the Department for Communities,  The Government has provided information on the tax implications of employees selling shares on PISCES which we cover in more detail below, and The latest schedule of HMRC Talking Points live and recorded webinars for tax agents are available for booking. Spaces are limited, so take a look now and save your place, and Check HMRC’s online services availability page for details of planned downtime and the online services affected. Tax implications of employees selling shares on PISCES In a recent Written Ministerial Statement (WMS) to Parliament, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury confirmed that the Government will legislate in the next Finance Bill to allow employers with employee permission to amend existing contracts to include a PISCES trading event as an exercisable event, without losing tax advantages under the various tax advantaged venture capital schemes. The WMS also confirms that more information on this will be published before the end of summer 2025. PISCES, the Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System, is a new type of secondary trading platform that will allow for the intermittent trading of private company shares. At the 2025  Spring Statement, the Government published a technical note explaining how such trading events will interact with the existing tax advantaged venture capital schemes and the tax implications for employees selling their shares on PISCES.

At a TALC Audit subcommittee meeting last week, Revenue indicated that the Central Register of the Beneficial Ownership of Trusts (CRBOT) team are visiting practitioners and those believed to be acting on behalf trusts. The purpose of the visits is to raise awareness of the obligations of trustees and the relevant CRBOT registration requirements.  

The OECD has published guidance to assist governments in the development of domestic manuals to guide  law enforcement authorities through each stage of a criminal tax investigation.

The OECD has published a working paper on the Domestic Resource Mobilisation (DRM) Framework and its application to social protection financing. The DRM framework is used to identify country-specific tax policy measures and to estimate their tax revenue potential in mobilising additional domestic resources in low- and middle-income countries.

In UK news this week, HMRC has provided an update to the Institute following the public announcement that £47 million has been paid out in fraudulent tax repayments and HMRC has published a provisional update on its phone performance. In Irish news, the Fiscal Monitor for May 2025 has been released and Revenue has published guidance on the cross-border VAT SME scheme. In International news, the European Commission publishes the 2025 country report for Ireland. UK 1. Read about the update from HMRC to the Institute on the recent phishing scam. 2. HMRC has released provisional details on its phone performance for March 2025. Ireland 3. The Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform have published the Fiscal Monitor for May 2025 which confirms an Exchequer surplus of €4.0 billion to the end of May. 4. Revenue has published a new Tax and Duty manual on the operation of the Cross-Border VAT SME scheme. International 5. Read about the 2025 country report for Ireland which was recently published by the European Commission. Keep up to date with all the latest Irish, UK, and international tax developments through Chartered Accountants Ireland’s Tax Newsletter. Subscribe to the Tax News by updating your preferences in MyAccount. You can also read this week’s post EU exit corner here.  

Revenue has published updated guidelines for Phased Payment Arrangements to update details on relevant terms and to remove obsolete details.

The Central Statistics Office has published the Quarterly National Accounts – Provisional for the first quarter of 2025 confirming GDP increased by 9.7 percent on a quarterly basis in the first quarter of this year. Modified Domestic Demand grew by 0.8 per cent relative to the previous quarter and by 1 per cent on an annual basis. The publication outlines an increase of 2.5 percent in consumer spending in the first quarter and a substantial increase in goods exported. Commenting on the figures, Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe said: “Today’s figures confirm the relatively strong position of the domestic economy at the start of this year. Looking ahead, however, the economic outlook has become increasingly challenging. Indeed, the significant increase in uncertainty is likely weighing on growth”

The Parliamentary Budget Office recently published the Tax Receipts Dashboard which presents net tax receipts data in a visual and interactive manner. The dashboard looks at the makeup of the tax base, and analyses tax receipts by tax head, economic sector and by county. The dashboard outlines that the manufacturing sector, which includes the pharmaceutical industry, represented 15.5 percent of total tax receipts in 2024. This represented a fourfold increase since 2011 primarily driven by higher corporation tax yields. The information and communication sector contributed 11.94 percent of receipts, reflecting a seven-fold increase since 2011. In 2024, total net receipts of €44 million arose in Dublin, with Cork reporting total receipts of €26.5 million including receipts arising from the Court of Justice of the European Union ruling in the Apple State Aid case. All other counties account for approximately or less than €2 billion each. The publication includes a note with information on how to use and interact with the dashboard.