A further Revenue statement on the interpretation of the Ireland/Italy Double Taxation Agreement has issued

The statement, presented as Revenue eBrief 12/2006 comments that CGT is not a covered tax under the Agreement. It goes on to say that under the proposed terms of the new Agreement currently under negotiation, it is intended that CGT will be a covered tax.

This may be fair enough as far as it goes. However, the eBrief also suggests that “any taxpayers affected by this clarification should contact their Revenue office.” This might be taken to imply that Revenue could seek to resile from their treatment of transactions entered into before the publication of this eBrief. Such action would be unhelpful and unfair, as it would prejudice taxpayers who had acted in accordance with the Revenue interpretation which had applied up to now. ICAI will seek to clarify the position through the TALC process. The full text of the EBrief is reproduced at 2.02 below.