What is business relief?
Business relief reduces the taxable value of relevant business property by 90% of that value.
Relevant business property means:
(a) a business or an interest in a business,
(b) unquoted Irish company shares (or securities)
(c) unquoted shares (or securities) in a private Irish company which the beneficiary controls,
(d) unquoted Irish company shares (or securities) not within (b) or (c) which give the beneficiary control of 10% or more of the company’s entire share capital
(e) land, buildings, machinery or plant used by a company controlled by the disponer or a partnership of which the disponer was a partner
(f) quoted Irish company shares (or securities)
The disponer must have continuously owned the relevant business property:
(a) in the case of an inheritance, for at least two years before the date of the inheritance, and
(b) in any other case, for five years before the date of the gift.
In this regard, a continuous period of ownership by the disponer, or his/her spouse, counts as a single period of ownership.