Sorry I’m late to this party.
So, the statutory basis of assessment is set out in Section 747B Taxes Consolidation Act 1997.
The tests for a fund as set out in tax legislation are:
· The investment must be similar in all material respects to an authorised investment company or authorised unit trust scheme, depending on which the investment is i.e. a company or unit trust
· The company/unit trust scheme must hold an authorisation issued by the authorities of the state where it is resident providing for the proper and orderly regulation of such companies/unit trust schemes and that authorisation has not ceased to have effect, and
· In the case of an investment company, it raises capital by promoting the sale of its shares to the public, or in the case of a unit trust scheme, it provides facilities for the participation by the public as beneficiaries under the trust in profits or income arising from the acquisition, holding, management or disposal of securities or any other property whatsoever.
So it is not the case that any particular ETF picked at random is or isn’t subject to CGT or exit tax unless it is assessed against these criteria and shown to be either materially different or essentially the same as an Irish fund.
The one clear exception to this is UCITs ETFs (although not necessarily ETPs or ETCs) which are all deemed automatically to fall under the gross roll up regime.
The second challenge for investors is that even if you are able to establish that say a particular non-Eu ETF is subject to capital gains tax the practical position for most investors is that due to the PRIIPs regulations you probably can’t buy it in practice because there is no KIID document.
This is the real sting in the tail coming down the line for U.K. investment trusts.
Currently in the U.K. OEICe have a 5 year exemption from producing a PRIIPs KIID document but this exemption didn’t apply to closed ended funds.
If they are able to successfully lobby the FCA to get the KIID document removed then EU investment platforms won’t be able to list them for retail investors and it will be game over for the Irish public.
I’m not one for forecasts but something like this seems probable
€100 billion on deposit with negative interest rates and rising inflation - not easy to invest prudently- ok lads let’s lash it into properly so - collapse of property market in yet another speculative orgy.
You couldn’t make it up
Marc Westlake
Chartered Certified and European Financial Planner
www.globalwealth.ie