Originally introduced in the Finance Act 2012 the Special Assignee Relief Programme (SARP) was to run for the tax years 2012, 2013 and 2014, however in the Finance Act of 2014 this has been extended to include certain individuals working in Ireland during 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Individuals looking take advantage of this programme need to be assigned to work in Ireland by their employer with whom they must have been working with for at least six months and must be incorporated in a country that has an existing tax agreement with Ireland.
Although this generally refers to foreign workers in Ireland it does not exclude Irish citizens as long as they meet all the criteria including having not been tax resident in Ireland for the five years preceding arriving to take up employment.
Employees must work in Ireland for twelve consecutive months to qualify for this relief.
The Finance Act of 2014 not only extended this relief programme for workers coming to Ireland, it also removed the upper threshold. Previously this relief only applied to 30% of the employee’s income between 75,000 EUR and 500,000 EUR, but now this includes 30% relief on all income over 75,000.
If it is possible that you might be contracting in Ireland it is worth looking into the SARP programme in detail to see if this can benefit you.
For more information please contact us!
