Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. It is important to put the following on the record. The amendments proposed to section 604A of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 do not represent a change to the qualifying conditions for the relief. They instead affirm the policy intent underpinning the relief, which has been clear since the then Minister for Finance announced the relief. The policy intent at the time of the announcement was that this relief was to apply to property purchased in the relevant period and held for the requisite holding period. This policy intent has been consistently reflected in Revenue guidance issued in respect of the relief, and on the occasions where clarity has been sought in respect of the qualifying conditions for the relief, the requirement that the property be purchased for actual consideration has been consistently confirmed by Revenue. As such, the amendment confirms the basis on which the relief has consistently been administered and so the application of the amendment to all disposals in respect of which relief under section 604A is available is appropriate. In effect, what we are saying is that Revenue has applied in practice what we are confirming now in legislation. The amendment will not result in any clawbacks for individuals who have already claimed the relief. This relief has been consistently administered by Revenue in line with the policy intention that applied to purchasers. It is not proposed or considered necessary to undertake a retrospective compliance exercise with the amended relief.

Coming back to the earlier substantive point the Deputy made on the exit effect and the advice some advisers are giving now to property owners, any exit effect would have manifested since 2018. We are a number of years into this process at this point. On the question of revisiting or making changes retrospectively to a substantive provision in law, which is very different from what we are doing here, namely, clarifying the existing practice, making a substantive change to a taxation provision that goes back that number of years raises significant equity issues. Some people have already availed of the relief in full and have exited and sold the property. Not to continue with the provision for those who purchased a property on the same terms in good faith based on the law of the time passed by the Oireachtas would raise very significant questions about the administration of our tax system and in my view would certainly be open to a legal challenge.