Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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299. To ask the Minister for Finance to provide a list of all jurisdictions outside the EU/EEA that Ireland does not have a double taxation treaty in place, that will apply a non-refundable dividend withholding tax; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56812/25]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I understand this question relates to a proposed amendment, in Finance Bill 2025, to the participation exemption set out in section 831B of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997.

Section 831B was introduced by Finance Act 2024 and provides a corporation tax exemption to a parent company that receives a qualifying dividend or other type of distribution from a subsidiary that is tax resident in a “relevant territory”. A relevant territory is an EEA state or a territory with which Ireland has signed a double tax treaty. It does not include a territory listed on the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes.

It is proposed in Finance Bill 2025 to amend the definition of a “relevant territory” to broaden the geographic scope of the exemption to include jurisdictions outside of the EEA and tax treaty territories, where that jurisdiction generally applies a foreign withholding tax on dividends paid by resident companies to non-resident companies. That foreign withholding tax must be imposed at a nominal rate of tax greater than zero per cent and that foreign withholding tax must have been actually paid on the full amount of the dividend. No amount of that foreign withholding tax can have been refunded, or fall to be repaid, to any person. It will be clear to a taxpayer if tax has been withheld from the gross dividend paid to them, as they will have received a reduced payment. A territory on the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions will remain excluded from the regime.

As qualification will depend on the tax system of the subsidiary jurisdiction it is not possible to provide a definitive list of all potentially in-scope jurisdictions. However, based on information publicly available online, subsidiaries located in trading partner jurisdictions such as Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Colombia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tanzania, and Tunisia, are expected to generally come into scope of the exemption regime. Whether or not the participation exemption applies in any given case will depend on all qualifying conditions being met by the relevant companies.

The operation of the participation exemption rules is on a self-assessment basis with the normal Revenue audit and compliance rules applying.