Revenue - First Active - Eircom

[WizardDr]

I must say the Revenue approach on First Active should be applauded.

They have carefully spent month and months preparing letters for all the small shareholders who sold their shares to RBS that they now have a capital gains tax liability. And here is the amount. And if you dont pay it penalties, jail and publication of your name may await!

They did leave out the slight problem that any of these shareholders may have losses from the Eircom days ..and the simplicity of the CGT calculations in that ..are of course 1st class primary school.

Its becomig clear that the Self Employed are not the only targets.

 

[Guest]

> They did leave out the slight problem that any of these shareholders may have losses from the Eircom days ..and the simplicity of the CGT calculations in that ..are of course 1st class primary school.

I presume that you are being sarcastic?




> And if you dont pay it penalties, jail and publication of your name may await!

The letter that I got doesn't mention any of these. Just what Revenue estimate the CGT liability to be (which is incorrect because it doesn't take into account some other relevant events) and that the tax is due by October 31st.

 

[Tommy]

Unfortunately Eircom losses are of no use to most FA shareholders as Revenue have stipulated that eircom & other losses forward must be offset against the 2003 FA capital reorganisation gain (which for most people was tax-free anyway as it was under the €1270 annual threshold). See Niall Brady's articles in Tribune last Sunday for more on this.

 

[ecstatic]

Eircom losses

Tommy i talked with the tax office and they said to me the losses can be taken.

How should i proceed?

 

[Guest]

Eircom losses

Can you expand on what exactly they said to you? According to the link below previously incurred losses must be set against a capital again BEFORE application of one's annual CGT allowance. In the case of FA this means that many FA/eircom shareholders will have to offset some or all of their eircom losses against the 2003 capital repayment leaving little or nothing with which to reduce their CGT liability on the 2004 takeover payment. In many cases all eircom losses will be "used up" by the 2003 capital repayment calculations. So - yes - you can write your eircom losses off against your FA gains but you have to write them off against the 2003 capital repayment first and then use whatever is left (if anthing!) when calculating your CGT on the takeover payment. As Tommy says Niall Brady highlighted this quirk in two Tribune articles last weekend.

[broken link removed]

 

[WizardDr]

Re: Eircom losses

Basically the Eircom situation is terribly complicated and was there was an article in yesterdays Turbine about that, and to be honest, it brought tears to the eyes. Firstly because it reminded me the losses I incurred by the pillage by O'Reilly and secondly the crass lack of any acknowledgement by Merrion Street that is was only people who held for the 'longterm' actually got done.

Using losses against gains before exemption is correct.

Just because the Revenues 'helpful' letter did not say anyting about penalties .. ask them what they intend to do if you do nothing?

 

[Guest]

Re: Eircom losses

> Just because the Revenues 'helpful' letter did not say anyting about penalties

I felt that your original post seemed to insinuate that the Revenue letter to former FA shareholders was somehow threatening. Anybody who assumes that there are no penalties for tax evasion mustn't get out very much... :\

 

[WizardDr]

Re: Eircom losses

I think the Revenue are 'threatening' in a whole number of ways.

1. They conceived a 'look back' scheme on Non Resident Accounts 17 years after they created the legislation to allow them to take action.

2. They take no criticism that they in any way had anything to do with what was going on.

3. They then 'ignore' the same situation with Credit Union dividends (and this is not saying that taxing the dividend is fair or otherwise) which have been taxable (and ignored) since 1966.

4. They then launch the FA matter and suddenly people who thought they were tax compliant relaise there is an issue. Mind you the fact that it is lunacy to have CGT on such low gains and then have tax at full rate on the dividends ..does nothing to convice me that they have any understanding of econimics rather the 'Law' that they write and follow up when they decide to do so.

5. They bring in complex BIK rules and happen to ignore parking spaces because the Civil Service have most of them.

6. The only plus in FA issue is that did not wait 17 years and then go after everybody !

We should be simplifying tax and not making a useless industry of it.

 

[Slim]

Re: CGT Exemption for Married Couple

Hi All

We only qualified for FA shares because we have a joint mortgage on our PPR with FA. I read somewhere, either AAM or Independent on Sunday, that ,if the shares were allotted by virtue of a joint account, as ours were, then double the exemption could be claimed, i.e. €1,279 X 2 for 2004.

Is this correct/arguable/posssible?

Slim 8)