Residence, Domicile, Taxation and CGT moving to Ireland

[jwarren]

Happy New Year to all.

I am a dual Australian/EU (not Irish) national.
I am resident on the EU mainland, not Australia.
I am preparing to move to Ireland in 2026.
I have never lived in Ireland (only tourist or work-related visits).
My parents are not Irish nationals, were not born in Ireland, and have never visited Ireland.

I have a plan which I will walk through here and state my understanding and assumptions.
My focus is on taxation, residence/domicile and CGT from an Irish perspective (not from the AU or other-EU-nation perspectives).
Any feedback would be appreciated so that I get this right.
I have read some similar situations discussed here, but mine is sufficiently different so as to post a new thread.

Once settled, I need to do the following ASAP (and I think in this order, but please correct if you think otherwise):

1. declare my residence in IE

I want to be declared resident in IE so that I can transfer my AU pension lump sum (the value is under 200k EUR, and as I understand, would therefore not lead to a tax payable outcome in IE);
if I accept the Australian lump sum pension payout with my residence still located in my current EU location (which has a signed, but not-yet-effective tax treaty with Australia), then that EU country will be able to tax that lump sum as income, and clearly I wish to avoid that.

I read that one can make a Choice to be Tax Resident on revenue.ie (cannot post the link here ... disallowed) under 'Can you choose to be tax resident?'
My use case is a little different since I expect to have the 183+ days in IE for the year, but would like the declaration/evidence (Letter of Residence) before those days have elapsed.
Would I be able to make that Choice early as I would like to do ?
If not, then I would need to hold off on the next 2 points until the 183 days have passed:

2. Move the lump sum pension payout funds from AU to IE
3. Transfer other existing saved funds from AU to IE

For those 2 transfers, I have been told to open a separate bank account so that it can be easily inspected by Revenue and not have it mixed in any way with IE-sourced income/remittance.

4. Purchase a property in IE using these combined funds.

5. At some future time (in the following 2 years I think) I would like to sell a property I have in the other EU country.
There would be a capital gain on it, but as I would be IE resident (but neither ordinarily-resident nor domicilied in IE [well, that is my assumption]), then CGT would be payable only on funds from this sale if they are Remitted to IE.
So, if I didn't remit any of the proceeds, then I would expect to have no CGT payable in iE.

Does my plan stack up ?

ps: I have another thread about CGT on foreign property where the intent was to transfer the sale proceed funds to IE, but I will not adopt that plan since that property has not been my PPR for the entire period of ownership and so CGT would be payable in IE.

CGT on sale of overseas EU property before becoming an Irish resident

Hi everyone. I am an EU (but not Irish) citizen, living in my own home within Schengen on the EU mainland. I want to sell that residential EU property and then move to Ireland. The sale will deinitely have occurred/completed before moving to Ireland. Once in Ireland, I would then use the...

www.askaboutmoney.com

 

[Brendan Burgess]

You should not rely on any answers to such complicated questions given on askaboutmoney or elsewhere online.

Askaboutmoney is ok for discussing issues which crop up regularly and affect a lot of people so there is a good body of knowledge out there and questions can be asked, answers can be given and wrong answers can be corrected.

It is quite possible in your situation that someone who knows a little could answer your question with complete confidence and be completely wrong.

You need to pay a specialist in taxation across jurisdictions. There are some recommendations here:

Key Post - Expatriate Tax Advisors

A friend of mine has returned from Canada and was asking me about the tax implications. I told him that he would need specialist tax advice. I thought it would be useful to compile a list of advisors in Ireland who are familiar with the tax rules in different countries. So if you have any...

www.askaboutmoney.com

 

[jwarren]

Fair call.

So, I will ask for opinion on just a single aspect of my original post, and that relates only to the status of being tax resident in Ireland, i.e.:

I read that one can make a Choice to be Tax Resident on revenue.ie (cannot post the link here ... disallowed) under 'Can you choose to be tax resident?'
My use case is a little different since I expect to have the 183+ days in IE for the year, but would like the declaration/evidence (Letter of Residence) before those days have elapsed.
Would I be able to make that Choice early as I would like to do ?

 

[ClubMan]

I read that one can make a Choice to be Tax Resident on revenue.ie (cannot post the link here ... disallowed) under 'Can you choose to be tax resident?'

This, I presume?

How to know if you are resident for tax purposes

This page describes how tax residence is determined and how it affects the tax you pay

www.revenue.ie

Can you choose to be tax resident?​

You might not be present in Ireland for the required number of days to be considered resident for tax purposes. You can choose to be tax resident in the tax year you arrive in Ireland. This is provided you:

• arrive in Ireland with the intention of being resident in the following tax year
• and
• barring unforeseen circumstances, you will be resident in Ireland in the following tax year.

If you choose to be tax resident in Ireland, you will be taxed on your worldwide income. You can also claim full tax credits.

You must inform Revenue in writing if you choose to be tax resident in Ireland in a tax year.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

Hi J

I am sure someone will be able to answer that question for you.

But I would not be making any decision on its own. I would make sure first that it is the right thing to do.

B

 

[jwarren]

Thanks Brendan. Thanks ClubMan.

Yes, that's the page, and yes, I would satify those 2 conditions.
But the phrase 'You might not be present in Ireland for the required number of days to be considered resident for tax purposes.' would not describe my situation correctly since for the year (let's say 2026) I will have (by year's end) actually resided the required number of days and so be deemed to be tax resident. It's just that I would like to formalize the tax residence earlier, before the days have actually already elapsed.

J