IRELAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Amelia O’Beirne and Trevor Glavey, A&L Goodbody
5.4 Reporting Obligations and Disclosure Regimes Ireland’s Mandatory Reporting Regime Mandatory disclosure rules exist in Ireland and require tax advisers to disclose any transaction, or any pro - posal for any transaction, that enables or might be expected to enable a person to obtain a tax advan - tage. The tax advantage must be the main, or one of the main, benefits of the transaction and the transac - tion must fall into one of the following categories. • There is a need for confidentiality in relation to the scheme. • The fees are significantly attributable to the tax advantage. • The transaction involves standardised documenta - tion, the form of which is largely determined by the promoter. • The transaction gives rise to a tax advantage of a particular class prescribed in the regulations – eg, tax advantages arising from: • The transaction gives rise to a tax advantage where a party to that transaction is a trustee of a discre - tionary trust, and the trust is not of a type which is excluded from the requirement to disclose informa - tion by regulations. A transaction is disclosable whether it is a “bespoke” transaction (designed for a particular person) or an “off-the-shelf” transaction (marketed with no specific client in mind). Bespoke schemes must be disclosed when any transaction forming part of a disclosable transaction is implemented. Disclosure of the details of such transactions must be made to Revenue within five working days of the date of the first transaction entered into by the client. DAC6 EU Council Directive (2018/822) (DAC6) places an obligation on intermediaries to report certain cross- border arrangements which involve one or more of a list of specified “hallmarks”. DAC6 was implemented into Irish law pursuant to the Finance Act 2019 and (a) loss schemes for individuals; (b) loss schemes for companies; (c) employment schemes; (d) income into capital schemes; and (e) income into gift schemes.
came into effect from 1 July 2020. Broadly, interme - diaries are required to provide certain information regarding reportable cross-border arrangements to the Irish tax authorities, which automatically share the information they receive with all other EU member states. The DAC6 report must be filed 30 days after a reporting obligation is triggered. DAC7 EU Council Directive (2021/514) (DAC7) was imple - mented into Irish law by the Finance Act 2022. DAC7 obliges certain platform operators to collect and auto - matically report information to Revenue on certain sellers using their platforms to earn consideration. 5.5 Role of Tax Authorities and Enforcement Measures Revenue is the authority in Ireland responsible for enforcing tax laws, collecting taxes/duties and imple - menting customs controls. The tax system in Ireland generally functions on a self- assessment basis, which means that it is the respon - sibility of the taxpayer to promptly file returns and pay the correct amount of tax. To the extent that errors are made by taxpayers in connection with their tax affairs, facilities exist to enable taxpayers to voluntarily address those errors and discharge any liabilities with reduced penalty exposure. In general, taxpayers are selected by Revenue for a compliance intervention based on the presence of various risk indicators. Rev - enue routinely uses analytics software to risk-profile taxpayers and tax risks on the basis of available data, with a view to identifying appropriate cases for a com - pliance intervention. Revenue conducts all of its enquiries in line with the Code. The Code has a graduated, three-level compli - ance intervention framework as follows. • Level 1 interventions are designed to support com - pliance by reminding taxpayers of their obligations and providing them with the opportunity to correct errors without initiating a more in-depth interven - tion. • Level 2 interventions are designed to confront compliance risks based on the circumstances and
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