The writing-off of a debt, for example, by a bank, is not a disposal for Capital Gains Tax purposes. We have already queried this with Revenue and their direction on it is established. There is also no provision in the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 specifically providing that the writing-off of a debt is a gain.
However, the taxation of gifts is dealt with in the Capital Acquisitions Tax Consolidation Act 2003.
The position as regards Capital Acquisitions Tax is that it is assumed that financial institutions, in making an offer to customers to restructure the latter’s obligations, are motivated by commercial considerations only and are not intent on making any type of actual gift to the customer, this is a key consideration – because it cannot be a gain (under the 97′ Act) it could only be taxable as a gift – except that it isn’t.
Commercial agreements entered into on an arms length basis would be outside the scope of Capital Acquisitions Tax.
Obviously the usual caveat applies whereby determining the final taxation position of the transaction would require …