Is the 41% Exit Tax Soon to be Scrapped? Michael McGrath to Review

@AJAM the reason behind your sums is that in effect the DD tax payment is denying the 7% p.a. that would be earned if instead it was in a CGT fund. It's a time value of money thing. I am sure that Ireland Inc. can easily earn more than 7% p.a. on the capital budget. This would negate your point about the "measly €2,498" extra that the tax man collects.
 
end gross roll up for etfs and tax all dividends at persons marginal rate including prsi and usc taxation.
I'm not sure the life industry would be cheering for this. That all matters tax are taken care of by the life company is a major selling point for their product. The Revenue would be even less enthusiastic as hundreds of thousands of humble taxpayers need to make fairly complex adjustments to their PAYE disclosures. The level of non compliance, inadvertent or otherwise, would be enormous. I remember when tax on deposit income was the responsibility of the punter - tax collected was miniscule - hence the introduction of DIRT.

Malone knows his onions for sure but about the only one of his recommendations that I would agree with is that ET losses should be an allowable offset against other ET gains.
 
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The Revenue would be even less enthusiastic as hundreds of thousands of humble taxpayers need to make fairly complex adjustments to their PAYE disclosures. T
Maybe that's the real reason behind all this, however they need to get with it and enter the 21st century because ireland is an outlier here.
Why is it such an issue for ireland but not for every other country because they don't have an issue with tax collection and have amended their systems to deal with it. If anything you would expect the former eastern bloc countries to be behind the curve here not ireland
 
Marmalade, that is complete nonsense. I challenge you to name one government project that has a proven 7% annual return on investment.
And even if you could, then by your argument, we should all pay all of our income over to the government because then we would all be 7% better off compounding annually!

Then on top of that the government should borrow as much as humanly possible at 3% to reap the rewards of this 7% annual return it is allegedly getting.
 
Maybe that's the real reason behind all this, however they need to get with it and enter the 21st century because ireland is an outlier here.
Why is it such an issue for ireland but not for every other country because they don't have an issue with tax collection and have amended their systems to deal with it. If anything you would expect the former eastern bloc countries to be behind the curve here not ireland
We are where were we are. Introducing for the very first time an onus on individual life policyholders to account for their tax liabilities would be a total fiasco and would for sure decimate the tax take; as I say through non compliance either inadvertent or otherwise and as for the transition for existing policyholders, I simply won't go there.
Mr Malone makes the mistake of thinking the whole world is in his space i.e. ETFs are the only game in town. In fact it is still very much a minority sport. If it did become mainstream then there would be compliance issues as I understand that currently the taxation is delegated to the investor at least for foreign ETFs.
 
Marmalade, that is complete nonsense. I challenge you to name one government project that has a proven 7% annual return on investment.
And even if you could, then by your argument, we should all pay all of our income over to the government because then we would all be 7% better off compounding annually!

Then on top of that the government should borrow as much as humanly possible at 3% to reap the rewards of this 7% annual return it is allegedly getting.
Ireland's GDP has increased from $100bn to $500bn this century. That is one heck of an increase in the tax paying power of the economy. Do you think that growth is courtesy of leprechauns mining at the end of a rainbow? Have you noticed how we are no longer ashamed when our Northern brethren travel south on to our suberb motorway network?
Your argument was totally based on the time value of money which you set at a rather ambitious 7% p.a. but more importantly you argue that a punter investing in the stockmarket can get more time value for money than Ireland Inc.
When the mandarins cost any particular State investment they would have a concept of the desired return on the investment, my guess is that they would want better than what they could get by merely buying an ETF.
Or put it another way, if the punter can make 7% p.a. investing the DD tax in an ETF why can't the Revenue do the same? Your point about a "measly" difference doesn't stack up.
 
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I really don't see this as that complicated tbh.

ETFs should be just treated as cgt applicable assets. So they should be subject to cgt on disposal, and dividend tax on paid dividends, like any share currently is. Simples.

Further gains &/or losses incurred on ETFs should be able to be offset against gains &/or losses on any other cgt applicable asset.

KISS ......and GOWI

(Get On With It!!)

P.s. and HTFU !!
(Hurry The Fup Up!! :)
 
ETFs should be just treated as cgt applicable assets. So they should be subject to cgt on disposal, and dividend tax on paid dividends, like any share currently is. Simples.
Indeed but that is the source of the problem. As I understand it some were taxed in this natural way but that put them at an advantage over mainstream collective vehicles - an anomaly which I understand the Revenue has moved to remove.
 
I'm not sure the life industry would be cheering for this. That all matters tax are taken care of by the life company is a major selling point for their product. The Revenue would be even less enthusiastic as hundreds of thousands of humble taxpayers need to make fairly complex adjustments to their PAYE disclosures. The level of non compliance, inadvertent or otherwise, would be enormous. I remember when tax on deposit income was the responsibility of the punter - tax collected was miniscule - hence the introduction of DIRT.

Malone knows his onions for sure but about the only one of his recommendations that I would agree with is that ET losses should an allowable offset against other ET gains.
Duke, lots of people in the Revenue don't know how to handle the taxation of ETFs either!!! As well as accountants and tax advisors.

Lots of people find using an insurance company very handy, whether it is for a monthly savings plan or for a lump sum. Some people just want the taxation side looked after and are happy to pay higher fees not to worry about it.

As for the tax calculations, I'd like to see the calculation of cost of units at sub-fund level using average cost be calculated accurately!
 
Duke, GDP is a measure of the size Economy. Specifically interactions within the economy. The portion related to government spending is small compared to Industry, Goods and Services. But even if the government contribution to GDP were large, all GDP is tracking is how much the government is spending each year, it is in no way related to how much the government is getting as a return on it's spending.

So yes, the Irish economy has done very well and part of this may be due to government policies, but it is in no way related to the ROI on taxes that the government collects. If anything it is the opposite - As the economy grows, the government collects more tax revenue and gets to spend it even less productively than before.
 
Duke, GDP is a measure of the size Economy. Specifically interactions within the economy. The portion related to government spending is small compared to Industry, Goods and Services. But even if the government contribution to GDP were large, all GDP is tracking is how much the government is spending each year, it is in no way related to how much the government is getting as a return on it's spending.

So yes, the Irish economy has done very well and part of this may be due to government policies, but it is in no way related to the ROI on taxes that the government collects. If anything it is the opposite - As the economy grows, the government collects more tax revenue and gets to spend it even less productively than before.
I was querying the relative time value for money between the Tax Man and the investor. Your sums are based on a 7% p.a. gap in favour of the investor. The Tax Man can always invest in ETFs if it so desires so to base an argument on the superior time value of money to the investor is erroneous. What your argument boils down to is "let the investor hold on to the deemed tax as it will grow at 7% p.a. and you will get the CGT on the gain". That is a big drop for the Tax Man.

As for the strange position that ETF companies love Ireland, so do Pharmas and Techs and LDI pedlars - we are indeed an outlier.
 
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The Tax Man can always invest in ETFs if it so desires so to base an argument on the superior time value of money to the investor is erroneous.
Well the way the Irish sovereign wealth fund has been invested is fairly bad, I heard on newstalk that alot of it is invested in government bonds, maybe even irish ones. They themselves should be investing in etfs
 
I would encourage all of you to write to the minister and express your support for scrapping the exit tax, and replacing it with CGT.
michael.mcgrath@finance.gov.ie

The reasons articles like this come out are to gauge public response. MMcG is considering it and wants to take the publics temperature. If there's a lot of blowback he shelves it. If he gets a lot of positive responses he proceeds.
I just wrote to him. Thanks for the nudge!
 
With the dash for the door by small landlords , it would seem timely to take the government’s foot off the neck of fund investors re_ the extremely draconian 41% tax after seven years
 
With the dash for the door by small landlords , it would seem timely to take the government’s foot off the neck of fund investors re_ the extremely draconian 41% tax after seven years
I have seen advice on other sites advising people to move to UK or NI to take advantage of all the investor tax breaks there vis a vis Ireland , tax free ISAs and £12000 CGT tax free allowance per year. I think it must be coming through on the grapevine now to government that they are preventing high skilled and high paid people moving to Ireland because of this taxation and restrictive investment environment.
 
Is 41% really all that draconian?

I stick €100,000 in today, I’ve no tax on anything for 8 years and then 41%. Is that better or worse than 52% on income as you go along plus 33% on any gains?
 
Is 41% really all that draconian?

I stick €100,000 in today, I’ve no tax on anything for 8 years and then 41%. Is that better or worse than 52% on income as you go along plus 33% on any gains?
I tend to agree. 41% is probably a reasonable blend of what you'd pay if the capital gains and dividends were taxed separately.

The general point is that financial assets outside pension funds are just taxed very heavily for Irish residents. It's a broader issue than just ETFs.
 
Is 41% really all that draconian?

I stick €100,000 in today, I’ve no tax on anything for 8 years and then 41%. Is that better or worse than 52% on income as you go along plus 33% on any gains?
Ireland uses taxation policy to attract the best of international investment since the 1980s, but individually we then have this strangely draconian taxation policy. Yes 41% taxation is draconian because nobody else in the OECD imposes it , only us, we are an outlier, but now it is getting out there that Ireland especially is unattractive for individual highly specialised people to move to. That explains why doctors are choosing to move to UK even at lower salaries and not to Ireland.
 
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