Finance Act, 1980

PART V

Stamp Duties

Conveyance or transfer on sale limit on stamp duty in respect of certain transactions between bodies corporate.

85.—(1) The following section shall be substituted for section 19 of the Finance Act, 1952 :

“19.—(1) Stamp duty chargeable under or by reference to the heading ‘Conveyance or Transfer on sale’ in the First Schedule to the Stamp Act, 1891, on any instrument to which this section applies shall not exceed fifty pence.

(2) This section applies to any instrument as respects which it is shown to the satisfaction of the Revenue Commissioners that the effect thereof was to convey or transfer a beneficial interest in property from one body corporate to another, and that at the time of the execution of the instrument the bodies in question were associated, that is to say, one was the beneficial owner of not less than ninety per cent. of the issued share capital of the other, or a third such body was the beneficial owner of not less than ninety per cent. of the issued share capital of each and that this ownership was ownership either directly or through another body corporate or other bodies corporate, or partly directly and partly through another body corporate or other bodies corporate, and subsections (5) to (10) of section 156 of the Corporation Tax Act, 1976 , shall apply for the purposes of this section with the substitution of—

(a) references to body corporate for references to company,

(b) references to bodies corporate for references to companies, and

(c) references to issued share capital for references to ordinary share capital.

(3) This section shall not apply to an instrument such as aforesaid unless it is also shown to the satisfaction of the Revenue Commissioners that the instrument was not executed in pursuance of or in connection with an arrangement whereunder—

(a) the consideration, or any part of the consideration, for the conveyance or transfer was to be provided or received, directly or indirectly by a person, other than a body corporate which at the time of the execution of the instrument was associated within the meaning of subsection (2) of this section with either the transferor or the transferee (which in this section mean, respectively, the body from whom and the body to whom the beneficial interest was conveyed or transferred), or

(b) the said interest was previously conveyed or transferred, directly or indirectly, by such a person, or

(c) the transferor and the transferee were to cease to be associated within the meaning of subsection (2) of this section by reason of a change in the percentage of the issued share capital of the transferee in the beneficial ownership, within the meaning of that subsection, of the transferor or a third body corporate,

and, without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (a) of this subsection, an arrangement shall be treated as within that paragraph if it is one whereunder the transferor or the transferee, or a body corporate associated with either as there mentioned, was to be enabled to provide any of the consideration, or was to part with any of it, by or in consequence of the carrying out of a transaction or transactions involving, or any of them involving, a payment or other disposition by a person other than a body corporate so associated.

(4) An instrument to which this section applies and which is stamped with an amount of duty less than the amount which, but for the provisions of this section, would be chargeable thereon shall be deemed not to be duly stamped unless the Revenue Commissioners have expressed their opinion thereon in accordance with section 12 of the Stamp Act, 1891.

(5) (a) The Revenue Commissioners may, for the purposes of this section, require the delivery to them of a statutory declaration in such form as they may direct made, as they may direct, by a responsible officer of a body corporate or by a solicitor of the Courts of Justice or by both and of such further evidence, if any, as they may require.

(b) The powers conferred on the Revenue Commissioners by paragraph (a) of this subsection shall be in addition to and not in substitution for the powers conferred on them by section 12 of the Stamp Act, 1891.

(6) If—

(a) where any claim for relief from duty under this section has been allowed, it is subsequently found that any declaration or other evidence furnished in support of the claim was untrue in any material particular,

or

(b) the transferor and transferee cease to be associated within the meaning of subsection (2) of this section within a period of two years from the date of the conveyance or transfer,

then the instrument shall, notwithstanding that it may have been stamped already and irrespective of whether or not it has been stamped with a particular stamp denoting that it is duly stamped in accordance with subsection (4) of this section, again become chargeable with stamp duty at the rate which would have been charged in the first instance if this section had not applied to the instrument and an amount equal to the duty again so chargeable shall forthwith be a debt due from the transferor and transferee jointly and severally to the Minister for Finance for the benefit of the Central Fund and be payable to the Revenue Commissioners and the said amount shall be recoverable in any court of competent jurisdiction and subsection (2) (inserted by the Finance Act, 1979 ) of section 69 of the Finance Act, 1973 , shall apply as if the duty was the stamp duty referred to in that subsection and the date of the conveyance was a date one month after the date of the transaction referred to in that subsection, and with any other necessary modifications.”.

(2) This section shall not have effect with respect to any instrument executed before the date of the passing of this Act.