In his Budget speech on 11 October 2016, the Minister for
Finance announced a comprehensive programme of targeted
intervention against offshore tax evasion. Positive action is
required ahead of 1 May 2017 for those with undeclared income and
gains from offshore assets.
Finance Act 2016, which includes legislative changes required to
implement some of the budget measures announced, was signed into
law by the President on 25 December 2016.
The legislative amendments come as increased data relating to
offshore accounts is set to become available to the Irish Revenue
Commissioners ("Revenue") as a result of Ireland's
implementation, as an early adopter, of the OECD's Common
Reporting Standard ("CRS"). The first exchange of
reported information under CRS, which will see details of offshore
accounts held by Irish resident customers being passed to Revenue,
is scheduled to commence in September 2017.
