The CCAB-I made a submission to Revenue seeking clarification on several issues arising from Revenue Tax and Duty Manuals Section 83E: Repayment of stamp duty where certain residential units leased and Section 31E: Stamp duty on certain acquisitions of residential property. Several the points raised by the CCAB-I are now clarified in the updated version of the Section 31E Tax and Duty Manual.

The TDM Section 31E: Stamp duty on certain acquisitions of residential property (10% rate of duty) has been amended as follows:

• Section 1 has been updated with contact details for any queries on interpretation of sections 31E and 83E that are not covered in the TDM.
• Section 3.1 has been updated in relation to a new Revenue practice to allow “own door” apartments to come within the definition of “apartment block”.
• A new section has been added at 5.1 relating to the inadvertent overly wide scope of the charging provision in subsection 12 and the narrowing of that scope. Consequential amendments arising from this narrowing have also been made to sections 8.3, 8.4, 8.6 and 8.7, which outline the interaction of section 31E with a number of other sections in the SDCA 1999 that provide for an exemption from the charge to stamp duty.
• Section 5.2 has been updated to clarify that, in relation to the indirect acquisition of residential units, no account is to be taken of any value derived from apartments.
• Section 8.5 has been updated to clarify that, in relation to the refund scheme in section 83E, the acquisition of a residential unit with an existing social housing lease is not regarded as a qualifying lease for the purposes of section 83E.

See Revenue eBrief No. 183/21 for further details.

You can also read the CCAB-I submission and the response received from Revenue through Tax News.