Finance Act, 1998

Amendment of Part 27 (unit trusts and offshore funds) of Principal Act.

66.—The Principal Act is hereby amended in Part 27 by the insertion after Chapter 2 of the following Chapter:

“CHAPTER 3

Offshore funds: supplementary provisions

Capital gains tax: rate of charge.

747A.—(1) In this section ‘material interest’, ‘non-qualifying fund’ and ‘offshore fund’ shall have the same meaning as is assigned to them in Chapter 2 of this Part.

(2) This section shall apply to a disposal, on or after the 12th day of February, 1998, by a person of an asset, if at the time of the disposal—

(a) the asset constitutes a material interest in an offshore fund which is not nor was at any material time a non-qualifying offshore fund, or

(b) the asset constitutes an interest in a company resident in the State or in a unit trust scheme, the trustees of which are at that time resident in the State and at a material time on or after the 1st day of January, 1991, the company or unit trust scheme was an offshore fund other than a non-qualifying offshore fund and the asset constituted a material interest in that fund.

(3) Subsections (2) to (7) of section 741 shall apply for the purposes of this section as if references in those subsections to a non-qualifying offshore fund were references to an offshore fund.

(4) Notwithstanding subsection (3) of section 28, the rate of capital gains tax in respect of chargeable gains accruing to a person on the disposal of an asset to which this section applies shall be 40 per cent.”.