The Mandatory Disclosure Regime which was intro-duced in Finance Act 2010 was reliant on Regulations for its operation. The Regulations were published last month and set out various operational aspects of the disclosure regime, including the information to be disclosed, the time by which it must be disclosed, the classes of transaction that come within the disclosure requirements and the circumstances in which a person is not to be considered a promoter.

The making of the Regulations follows a consultation process between Revenue and interested parties during the Summer and Autumn of 2010. Chartered Accountants Ireland, as part of CCAB-I, participated in this process.

In light of the consultation process, a number of modifications have been made to the Regulations with the approval of the Minister for Finance.

The main changes to the Regulations are:

• The effective date is 17 January 2011; however, the first disclosures will not have to be made until 15 April 2011
• The exclusion of the need to provide documentation underlying a scheme at the time a disclosure is being made to Revenue
• The 5 day time period for making a disclosure is now couched in terms of ‘working days’

Quoting from the Minister for Finance's press statement on the publication of the Regulations, “the main purpose of the new disclosure regime is to constitute an ‘early-warning’ system for Revenue whereby information on tax avoidance schemes that may be unacceptable can be obtained at an early stage and closed down before they can do significant damage to tax revenues”.

Referring to the issue of equality between accountancy practices and other professional firms in complying with these new requirements, it appears from the press statement that advice was sought from the Attorney General on what operational changes might be made to the disclosure rules that would address the operational weakness while upholding the common law principle of legal privilege. It is suggested that further amendments to the legislation to address this weakness may be made at a later stage of the Bill.

Finance Bill 2011 provides for amendments to the mandatory disclosure legislation contained in Chapter 3 Part 33 TCA 1997. Details of these amendments are covered in our Finance Bill section earlier.

The Regulations and supporting documents were published on the Revenue website and can be accessed at http://www.revenue.ie/en/practitioner/law/mandatory-disclosure.html