The Gazette 1996

MARCH 1996

GAZETTE

any practitioner through the legislative changes and alert them to the amendments to any section which have occurred. While these publications are not inexpensive the interaction of tax with the daily routine of a solicitor's practice makes a knowledge of taxation issues prevalent to any transaction a necessary additional skill. These publications are an indispensable tool in allowing practitioners access to the relevant legislation, on any issue in portable and comprehensive publications. The index to the publications are all comprehensive and carefully considered to facilitate ease of access to the pertinent legislation. These are all annual publications to which every practitioner should have access to the most recent edition. There is now a clear interaction of tax on what could be termed as main- stream law. To give just one example a conveyancer dealing with a voluntary disposition of property from a parent to a child may well have to consider such taxation issues ancillary to the disposition as Capital Gains Tax on the disposal, Capital Acquisition Tax on the acquisition, Valued Added Tax if it is a commercial property, Stamp Duty and in the case of a private residence Residential Property Tax. All these taxes may be inter-related to a lesser or greater extent in what might otherwise be considered a reasonably straight-forward transaction. The four publications from Butterworths, in the practitioner to the relevant legislation and commentaries thereon quickly and efficiently to enable the taxation issues in such a transaction to be identified and solved. reviewer's opinion, will be an indispensable tool for leading a

case law are given by way of a short synopsis for each section and subsection of the legislation at the end of every section of the legislation. For Income Tax the publication gives appropriate cross references to Judge's Income Tax for a narrative on each section. For any practitioner involved in conveyancing, commercial property or landlord and tenant law this publication is a must, principally because of the interaction of VAT with property. As the vast majority of case law in this area emanates from the EU the publication not only includes the Irish legislation and the statutory instruments but also the relevant EU directives. For practitioners trying to marry our legislation with EU directives the publishers have, by way of marginal notes, cross referenced the legislation to statutory instruments and the relevant EU directives and vice versa. This is an enormous benefit as a time saving exercise for both specialists and non specialists and provides for each of access to the legislation, the statutory regulations, and the EU directives, quickly and efficiently. This publication covers Stamp Duty, Capital Acquisitions Tax and Residential Property Tax, all of which are taxes which solicitors will, to a larger or lesser extent, interact with in their daily routine. The publishers have recently published two publications being Brian Bohan's Capital Acquisition Tax and Donegan & Freil on Stamp Duty. Unfortunately both publications were launched too late to allow the publishers to cross reference these publications in the Capital Taxes Act publication. Hopefully this will occur in the future. One novel element which was in the previous edition of this publication was the highlighting of the amendments introduced in the previous Finance Act which the publishers have omitted from this publication. However, their careful annotation of all amendments at the foot of all sections will clearly guide The VAT Acts The Capital Taxes Acts

Tax G u i d e 1995 / 96 1 5 3 2 p p; p a p e r b a c k , £60 . 00. Tax Ac ts 1995/96 1 8 9 4 p p; p a p e r b a c k , £75 . 00. VAT Ac ts 1995/96 6 9 7 p p; p a p e r b a c k , £65 . 00. C a p i t a l Ta x es Ac ts 1995/96 1 8 9 4 p p; p a p e r b a c k, £65 . 00. Publishers: Bu t t e rwo r t hs Ireland Limited For practitioners who daily deal with tax issues, the Tax Guide is a useful publication for the non specialist whereas the other three are indispensable to solicitors who must consider the interaction of taxation with the services they are providing for their clients. The TAX Guide The Tax Guide is what it sets out to be, namely a guide. Nine highly competent and experienced taxation practitioners contribute to this publication. This reviewer was, however, disappointed that elementary mistakes in the layout of examples such as the Capital Gains Tax form of application for a Capital Gains Tax clearance certificate still uses the old £60,000 threshold rather , than the £100,000 threshold. As any guide should be written with the non- specialist in mind such omissions deserve comment. However for the non-specialist this publication is useful and as far as any guide can be is comprehensive in covering the majority of issues which the average practitioner who does not specialise in taxation issues would encounter. The publication runs to over 1,500 pages. I was impressed with the index which leads the reader quickly to the relevant portion of the publication. The publishers have used numerous examples to explain the text and this is extremely useful for those who will have recourse to this publication. The Tax Acts This publication covers Income Tax, Corporation Tax, and Capital Gains Tax. The legislation is set out clearly and precisely. In addition all amendments to legislation are clearly marked and also notes on relevant

This reviewer wholeheartedly commends these publications to practitioners.

Richard Grogan SoIicitor/Senior Craig Gardner/Price

Consultant

Waterhouse

•