Accountant’s fee for CAT (Inheritance Tax) return

The account probably operated on a percentage basis. i.e. 1% is 10,900. Was their more involved than filing an IT38, which you can do yourself...

€1,200plus VAT @ 23% ?

How many hours do you think would have been worked to submit that return?

If you had an employee do the work, what would they have earned from you in that time?

Not sure where you are getting percentages from. Farm relief and business relief both reduce the values of the eligible assets by 90% of their values. Different qualifying criteria though. Asset test can disqualify many from the former

I would have expected that it is something that should have been asked up front. But recognise that it might not have been if the person always does the work for them

If you inherit eligible agricultural assets worth 1 million, and if you qualify for Ag relief, then you are assessed as if you inherited only 100k. The reduction is the same as the business relief. (I assume that when you say the relief is 10% you are referring to what it is assessed at, rather than the reduction).

I would think that business relief is more difficult to prove because there are requirements as regards time spent working in the business. For Ag relief you only really have to satisfy the asset test and then either have sufficient educational qualifications or else lease it to someone else who does for 6 years. The relief is clawed back for either if you don't keep the assets for at least 6 years.

And I understand your point. I was only asking how much work would be involved. It was a genuine question. You could have told me 1 hour or 100 hours. I was not going to dispute it.

I'm not 100% sure of what you are asking. You would go for either the business or the agricultural relief. You wouldn't be going for both unless you were inheriting two distinct entities. Business relief is usually used as a fallback in case the beneficiary might not qualify for agricultural relief due to the asset test. Any person can inherit any land from anyone else, even a stranger, and potentially avail of agricultural relief.

Values of the assets would be lifted from the accounts. The values of the crops in the fields are neither here nor there. And there are no such things as cash sales.

If it is an inheritance from parent to child, the threshold is giving you up to about 3.35m before you are liable for CAT. In most cases, your aim would be to MAXIMIZE the value of what you are inheriting rather than minimise.

Revenue have nothing to do with veterinary or any reductions. No more than they would come in an demand to see a Health and Safety Risk Assessment document for a business you inherited. So I'm not sure what you are asking about that. But, in case you are interested, every single animal you see in a field in Ireland has it's own identifying "passport" and is required to have identifying tags corresponding to its number. Every animal has to be registered within a short time of its birth.

I still don't know what you are saying. You appear to be assuming some lacuna or loophole but I cannot tell what you are thinking exists. Can you tell me what you think is being done or why it would be done.

You cannot have an unregistered animal. If you did, for some random reason, not register an animal and then tried to hide them, well you can't do anything with that animal. If you have other animals and register any of them, you are liable for an inspection at any time where a man will come out and check that tags are present. You can't sell it because nobody would buy it. And you can't breed from it because when you register its parents (for cattle anyway). The animals identity is unique and stays with that animal. Even if an animal gets sick and dies, it has to be processed by a knackery who register it is dead/processed. So I don't know what you think is going on.

The Donald does not appreciate the Revenue's insatiable appetite for raw data, which is only growing.

The poor farmers on the Cooley Peninsula, ran into trouble when their sheep had to be slaughtered for foot and mouth, and the numbers did not add up.