Anti-money laundering
The Irish government has launched Ireland’s first national strategy covering anti-money laundering, combating the financing of terrorism and countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (AML/CFT/CFP).
A key focus is strengthening national coordination over these goals; better understanding of financial crime risks; stronger regulation; better capability across government and the private sector; and enhancing international cooperation.
Specifically, the strategy includes strengthening anti-money laundering rules for crypto-assets and crypto transfers; increasing transparency around company ownership, with new disclosure requirements for limited partnerships and other higher-risk corporate vehicles; modernising financial intelligence, with more information sharing between government departments, An Garda Síochána, Revenue, FIU Ireland, the Criminal Assets Bureau, the central bank and financial institutions; strengthening supervision of financial institutions and gambling; and boosting government capacity to detect cyber-enabled fraud, sanctions evasion and other emerging financial crime threats.
The strategy is designed to deliver Ireland’s implementation of the European Union’s new Anti-Money Laundering legislative package, ensuring Ireland remains at the forefront of international best practice, and will support preparations for Ireland’s next Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Mutual Evaluation, the independent international assessment of Ireland’s effectiveness in combating money laundering and terrorist financing.
Finance strategy
Finance minister and Tánaiste Simon Harris has released Ireland for Finance Vision 2030, setting out 31 key actions designed to strengthen the country’s competitiveness as an international financial services centre, notably in digital finance.
The plan includes introducing a new regulatory impact assessment for financial services legislation; reviewing the Irish Collective Asset Management Vehicle and Companies Acts to support tokenised investment funds; and reviewing how Ireland’s structured finance sector could support blended climate and sustainable finance initiatives.
Central to the strategy is increasing the number of jobs in Ireland’s international financial services sector to 70,000 by 2030, with 25% of these positions located in the regions.
Investment account
Harris has also published a Roadmap for the Taxation of Retail Investment, including guidance on the government’s new low-tax Investment Account, designed to promote savings. It will have a no-tax threshold to be announced in the 2027 Budget, alongside an annual maximum contribution limit.
The paper also identifies options for reforming Ireland’s taxation of retail investment, which includes lowering taxation and reviewing a ‘deemed disposal rule’, which taxes investments after eight years, even when not cashed out.
Revenue performance
Revenue says it has successfully launched an estimated response time feature for users of its MyEnquiries service, which has encouraged the submission of questions via this online portal. Revenue says that 73% of respondents to a survey welcomed the response time estimates, with 58% saying it reduced the number of times they needed to contact the agency.
Landscape actions
Martin Heydon, the agriculture, food and the marine minister, has launched a state payment claims system for Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme participants deploying ‘landscape actions’: large-scale environmental actions focusing on issues such as threatened species, water-quality protection, invasive species management and encroaching scrub management.
European Union
The European Commission has released guidelines helping large companies determine whether they have a dominant position in the EU market and hence must not unfairly exclude competitors (in line with article 102 of the EU treaty). The advice follows EU case law in explaining how to identify and analyse such commercial behaviour.
The EU Council of Ministers has approved an overhaul of EU customs rules, clarifying that non-EU e-commerce platforms be considered a goods importer when selling into the EU and hence responsible for customs formalities and duty payments, rather than EU consumers.
More information
Read AB‘s article AML pressures ratchet up
Register for ACCA’s AML Insights webinar series
