F.A.Q.
Employer contributions that are paid to Occupational Pensions Schemes are excluded from the maximum allowable tax relief amount. Example, if you are between the ages of 30 – 39, you can add additional tax-free contributions up to 20% of your income per year.
Employer contributions to a Personal Retirement Saving Account (PRSA) are included in the maximum allowable tax relief. If you are between the ages of 30 – 39, you can add additional tax-free contributions of 20% of your income but if your employer contributes 5% then you can contribute up to a maximum of 15% to get full tax relief.
Buying shares in a company and selling at a profit does incur capital gains tax (CGT), currently at 33%. There is a threshold of €1,270 that you can earn prior to paying any CGT. Losses from the sale of shares can be used to offset the gains made from the sale of other shares.
Exit tax of 41% when you sell.
There is also a demand tax every eight years called deemed disposal. Even if the ETF has not been sold, you must pay tax on any profit that has been made up to that point.
Non-EU domiciled ETF, for example, ETF domiciled in the U.S. are treated like company shares and are taxed as CGT.
Dividends from share ownership are taxed as income, you will also pay PRSI and USC on the income.
There are different withholding tax rates based on where the share is domiciled. You will be taxed the remaining percentage of the dividend. ex. if there was 20% withholding then you pay the remaining 80% as income.
Dividends from Irish domiciled share ownership have a withholding tax of 20%
Dividends from Non-EU domiciled share ownership are taxed as income. There is a 30% withholding tax on dividends from U.S. shares, that can be reduced to 15% by filing a W8-BEN form with the broker. Tax will be due on the other 85% of the dividend.