There are two especially live aspects to tax compliance in relation to Trusts at the present time – the offshore structure reporting requirement, and the Disclosure initiative relating to the use of Trusts generally, both on-shore and offshore, as destinations for untaxed funds. With a 1 September deadline date for both, you may need to give some attention to these if you haven’t done so already.

As previously advised in ENews, the automatic reporting requirement is subject to certain exceptions, detailed in the Frequently Asked Questions section on the Revenue website at http://www.revenue.ie/en/practitioner/investigations/trusts/faqs-third-party.html. In addition, and not noted on the FAQ, is an exclusion for reporting on certain trust structures used in aircraft leasing & financing.

Typically such trusts are used:

• to facilitate the registration of aircraft by non-US leasing companies on the US Aircraft Register, or
• in some cases involving the financing of aircraft portfolios, to hold each aircraft in separate legal entities, or
• to facilitate the sale of aircraft which are on lease.

In essence, where the offshore trust structure is being used for non-tax purposes.

While section 896A returns need not be made, Revenue however reserve the right to issue a notice under section 896A requiring the furnishing of information relating to settlements in individual cases. In case of doubt, it might be worthwhile contacting the Revenue Special Projects Team, 5th Floor, Lansdowne House, Lansdowne Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.