I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that where recipients qualify for the small gift exemption from Capital Acquisitions Tax, i.e. they have received a gift (or gifts) from an individual within a calendar year, which does not exceed €3,000, then there is no obligation to submit a return to Revenue. As a consequence there is no data available to Revenue to estimate the impact of reducing the threshold by €500.
A recipient is however obliged to submit a return where the €3,000 threshold is exceeded. Based on returns of gifts for the tax year 2017, I am advised by Revenue that the estimated tax cost of increasing the threshold by €500 would likely be less than €1 million.