NEWS | Wednesday, 29 October 2008

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Malta tax exiles face Irish home tax

Irish tax exiles like Denis O’Brien, the telecommunications magnate who lives in Malta to pays tax on his overseas earnings here, will be unable to escape a new property tax the Irish government has unveiled.
Ireland’s celebrities and rich businessmen who live overseas to avoid paying tax at home will have to pay just a €200 levy on property that is not their “private, principal residence”.
O’Brien owns at least four homes in Ireland, three of them in Dublin. He and other 18 tax exiles from Ireland’s estimated 4,000 emigrés, are believed to be worth in excess of €50 million. Apart from Malta, their other favoured destinations are Geneva, Monaco, Bermuda, Portugal, Gibraltar, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas.
The new levy will generate up to €40 million from some 200,000 second homes and holiday homes in Ireland.
O’Brien took up a Maltese address just before floating his Caribbean telecoms company Digicel on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2000, the year O’Brien made €292 million from the sale of Esat Telecom to the BT Group, he avoided paying €50 million in capital gains tax when he moved to Portugal.
O’Brien flies in and out of Ireland in a Gulfstream jet, often late at night, to avoid clocking up an extra “day” in Ireland. Tax exiles can only spend a maximum of 183 days a year in the state, or 280 days over a two-year period. But a day does not count for tax purposes if an individual leaves the country before midnight.

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