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GAZETTE
OCTOBER 1978
provides that losses may be set first against the gains which
are taxable at the next highest rate, and so on. Similarly
the exemption for individuals in respect of the first £500
of gains may be applied first against the gains which are
taxable at the highest rate.
3. Capital Gains Tax on Death:
The third area in which the Bill proposes to give relief
is that of capital gains tax on death. The position up to
now has been that death does not constitute a disposal for
capital gains tax but that the personal representatives of
the deceased and beneficiaries under his will were deemed
to acquire the deceased's assets on the date and for the
consideration for which he had acquired them. In effect
therefore death merely deferred the payment of capital
gains tax, as the tax on gains which had accrued during
the deceased's lifetime was payable by the personal
representatives on a sale of the assets or by the legatees
on a subsequent disposal. Under the new Bill personal
representatives and legatees will be deemed to have
acquired the deceased's assets at their market value on
the date of the deceased's death and this applies to
all
disposals
after 6th April 1978. Death will therefore wipe
out the tax on gains accrued up to date of death, and
personal representatives and legatees will be responsible
only for tax on gains accruing after death. A similar
concession will be available on the death of a life tenant
under a trust when a person becomes absolutely entitled
to assets as against a trustee.
4.
Disposal within the Family of Business or Farm:
The fourth relief proposed by the Bill concerns the
disposal within the family of a business or farm.
Section 27 of the Capital Gains Tax Act gave relief
from capital gains tax in certain circumstances where an
individual disposed of certain business assets including
farming assets to members of his family. The
requirements for the relief were:
1. That the individual should have attained the age of
55 years;
2. That the disposal should be to a child or children of
his or to a nephew or niece provided that the
nephew or niece had worked substantially on a full-
time basis for the period of five years ending with
the disposal in carrying on or assisting in carrying
on the trade, business or profession and
3. That the assets should be retained by the child,
nephew or niece for at least ten years.
These basic conditions are unchanged by the Capital
Gains Tax (Amendment) Bill. However, the Bill proposes
a substantial improvement in the relief by abolishing three
additional restrictions which have applied up to now:
1. It used to be necessary for the individual in question
to dispose of the whole of his qualifying assets.
Relief will now be available whether he disposes of
the whole of his qualifying assets or of part only.
2. Full relief was available only if the value of the
qualifying asset did not exceed £150,000. This limit
is now to be abolished, and relief will be available
regardless of the value of the assets transferred.
3. An individual who had been granted relief under
Section 27 could not apply also for relief under
Section 26, which dealt with the disposal of
qualifying assets (not necessarily within the family)
for a consideration not exceeding £50,000. It will
now be possible to avail of relief under both
Sections.
5.
Clearance Certificates:
Finally I should mention one area of some interest to
legal practitioners where the Bill unfortunately does not
propose any improvement.
As you are aware, it is necessary to obtain a capital
gains tax clearance certificate on the sale of certain assets
including land in the State where the consideration
exceeds £50,000. In 1974 when the Act was introduced
relatively few houses were selling for more than £50,000.
Since then however the consumer price index has risen by
some 80% and the price of houses has probably risen by
even more. The result is that it is now necessary to apply
for a capital gains tax clearance certificate in a
considerable number of routine house sales, where there is
in fact no question of any capital gains tax liability. It is a
pity that the Bill does not propose to ease the
administrative burden on both Inspectors of Taxes and
Solicitors by increasing the £50,000 limit to £100,000.
WOMEN AND THE LAW
Sir,
Any of the 'excellent lady solicitors' who read the
fireside contribution of the anonymous male solicitor in
the
Gazette
of June last must surely have found most
indigestible 'food for thought' therein. The article
contained one logical contradiction after another. Some
sentences made one wonder whether the author was really
in earnest or simply a joker suffering from poor
circulation — this description referring not to
justification of his physical surroundings at time of
writing but rather to his movement within the profession.
Take line 10 for instance: 'I have working experience with
ladies as partners'. An even less presentable example
occurs later in the text.
Let us assume however that the contributor was
bona
fide.
A merely precursory look at the sequence of his
observations reveals their inconsistency. If the motivation
of female students is as represented at (b) 'clearly . . . not
because of some positive reason but to avoid the possible
dead end of an Arts degree', how can the statement at (a)
be rationally explained? There we read that female
applicants for positions in solicitors' offices frequently
have better qualifications or better academic careers than
male applicants. The converse of this argument is one the
contributor would hardly wish to propose: that men, by
implication more positively motivated, are nevertheless
incapable of reflecting their motivation in academic
grades.
If women solicitors work so conscientiously and
research as well as one is told at (c), how could the fault
at (d) be attributed to them, that they regard 'a job as a
job'? Paragraph (d) might have succeeded in
downgrading women solicitors, the Civil Service and the
Bank in one fell swoop if it were not so patently irrational.
Again, paragraphs (c) and (e) conflict. Has our
anonymous male solicitor occupied his own off-hours
checking out how women solicitors spend
their
off-hours;
or has he conducted a private survey; or is he presenting
an unproved assumption, an impression, perhaps a bias of
his own?
In the well-balanced contribution in the
Gazette
of
March it was observed that women are significantly
under-represented at all levels within the legal profession
in Ireland as well as within the machinery of justice. It
would appear to be a precondition of justice under law
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