Section 14 of Finance Act 2012 introduced the Special Assignee Relief Programme which is designed to reduce the cost to employers of assigning key individuals in their companies from abroad to take up positions in the Irish based operations of their employer. By way of eBrief No. 29/12 (dated 29/6/2012) Revenue advised that they had updated their Tax and Duty manuals to reflect matters relating to the new SARP. Details of the relief are also included in Revenue’s Guide "Supporting Job Creation and other Enterprise Supports". Details of these and other documentation in relation to SARP, including the claim form, are available on Revenue’s website at www.revenue.ie.
Paragraph 10 of Section 14 provides that relevant employers must submit an annual return to the Revenue Commissioners detailing, inter alia, the number of employees and the amounts of exempt income claimed under the programme. As 2012 was the first year of the programme, this return was not sought until after the end of the tax year 2012 in order to ensure that as accurate a picture as possible of take-up levels over a full tax year could be provided.
Employer returns received to date for 2012 indicate that there were 6 individuals who qualified for the relief with 2 of them receiving an aggregate total tax-free remuneration of €39,767. Job increases were reported as numbering 26 with 2 jobs also reported as retained because of the relief. It is expected that the 4 individuals who are not reported in the employer returns as receiving tax-free remuneration are expected to claim it when they submit Form 11 tax returns for 2012 in late 2013. Until the details from these returns are available it would be premature to attempt an estimate of the amount of tax that would be saved for the Exchequer if SARP was abolished in 2014.
It is possible that not all employers have submitted a SARP return yet. Also, the figures provided do not include the details for claims that are not included in employer returns received to date but will be made in the Form 11 tax returns for 2012 to be filed under the self-assessment system in October/November of 2013.
