Qualifying Investor Alternative Investment Fund or QIAIF is a Central Bank of Ireland regulatory classification [lower-alpha 1] established in 2013 for Ireland's five tax-free legal structures for holding assets. The Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicle or ICAV is the most popular of the five Irish QIAIF structures, it is the main tax-free structure for foreign investors holding Irish assets.
In 2018, the Central Bank of Ireland expanded the Loan Originating QIAIF or L–QIAIF regime which enables the five tax-free structures to be used for closed-end debt instruments. The L–QIAIF is Ireland's main debt–based BEPS tool as it overcomes the lack of confidentiality and tax secrecy of the Section 110 SPV. [lower-alpha 2] It is asserted that many assets in QIAIFs and LQIAIFs are Irish assets being shielded from Irish taxation. [lower-alpha 3] [4] Irish QIAIFs and LQIAIFs can be integrated with Irish corporate base erosion and profit shifting ("BEPS") tax tools to create confidential routes out of the Irish tax system to Ireland's main Sink OFC, Luxembourg. [lower-alpha 4]
In March 2019, the UN identified Ireland's "preferential tax regimes" for foreign funds on Irish assets as affecting the human rights of tenants in Ireland. [6] [7]
Irish QIAIFs are subject to the EU Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive 2011 (“AIFMD”) which lays out detailed rules on the process of constructing (e.g. diversification, leverage), managing (e.g. AIFM approved managers), and marketing (e.g. qualifying investors) of QIAIFs in Europe. However, the following are considered the most important features specific to Irish QIAIFs: [8] [9] [10]
As at 2016, €435 billion in alternative assets were held in Irish QIAIFs. Ireland is the fourth-largest domicile for Alternative Investment Funds ("AIF") in the EU with 9.9% of the €4.4 trillion EU AIF market, behind Germany (31.7%), France (21.3%) and Luxembourg (13%). [10] It is asserted that a material amount of QIAIF assets (or AIF assets) are Irish assets being shielded from Irish taxation. [20] [21] [22] [23]
Each of the five QIAIF legal wrappers have attributes designed for different uses. However, outside of entities that need the specific attributes of a trust law (and will use the Unit Trust QIAIF), or can only use a full company structure (and will use a VCC QIAIF), the ICAV is expected to be the dominant QIAIF wrapper. [24]
Ireland is considered by some academic studies to be a major tax haven, and offshore financial centre, with a range of base erosion and profit shifting ("BEPS") tools. [32] [33] Ireland's main debt–based BEPS tool was the Section 110 SPV. However, Irish public tax scandals in 2016 concerning the use of this BEPS tool – involving artificial Irish children's charities – by U.S. distressed funds, assisted by the leading Irish tax-law firms, to avoid billions in Irish taxes damaged its reputation (see Section 110 abuses). [33]
In late 2016, the Central Bank of Ireland began a consultation process to upgrade the little-used L–QIAIF regime. [1] [34] In February 2018, the Central Bank of Ireland changed its AIF "Rulebook" to allow L–QIAIFs to hold the same assets that Section 110 SPVs could own. However, the upgraded L-QIAIFs offered two specific improvements over the Section 110 SPV which make L–QIAIFs a superior Debt–based BEPS tool: [14] [35]
Three months after the Irish Central Bank updated its AIF "Rulebook", the Irish Revenue Commissioners issued new guidance in May 2018 on Section 110 SPV taxation which would further reduce their attractiveness as a mechanism to avoid Irish taxes on Irish assets. [36] In June 2018, the Central Bank of Ireland reported that €55 billion of U.S.-owned distressed Irish assets, equivalent to almost 25% of Irish GNI*, moved out of Section 110 SPVs. [2] [3] [37] The L-QIAIF, and the ICAV wrapper, in particular, is expected to become an important structure for managing Irish tax on Irish assets in a confidential manner. [lower-alpha 3] [38]
Ireland has Irish Real Estate Funds (IREFs) for holding direct Irish property which are not tax-free, their holdings relate to Irish quoted REITs (e.g. Green REIT plc), and insurance assets. The investments by US distressed debt funds in Irish property are via loan acquisitions and thus use L-QIAIFs. [3] [38] In addition, foreign investors in Irish property can still use the L-QIAIF by holding via structured loans domiciled abroad, thus also avoiding Irish taxes in a confidential manner. [39] [40]
The QIAIF regime has contributed to making the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) one of the largest fund domiciling and shadow banking locations in Europe. [33] Many asset managers, and particularly alternative investment managers, use Irish QIAIF wrappers in structuring funds. However, fund structuring is a competitive market and other corporate tax havens such as Luxembourg offer equivalent products. It is asserted that many of the assets in Irish QIAIFs are Irish assets, and particularly from the sale of over €100 billion in distressed assets by the Irish State from 2012–2017. [4] [22] [23]
Irish QIAIFs have been used in tax avoidance on Irish assets. [21] [41] [42] [43] It transpired that the regulator of Irish QIAIFs, the Central Bank of Ireland, was paying rent to a U.S. entity using an Irish QIAIF ICAV to avoid Irish taxes on the rent. [44] Irish QIAIFs have been used to circumvent international regulations, [45] on avoiding tax laws in the EU and the U.S. [46] [47] Irish QIAIFs can be combined with Irish corporate BEPS tools (e.g. the Orphaned Super–QIF), [48] to create confidential routes out of the Irish corporate tax system to other tax havens such as Luxembourg, [5] the main Sink OFC for Ireland. [48] [49] [50]
QIAIFs link Ireland's strength as a corporate-focused tax haven, with the world's largest corporate BEPS tools, [32] to more traditional tax haven type activities (why Cayman SPCs are re-domiciling as Irish ICAVs). [51] The launch of the Irish ICAV was widely covered, and praised, by the leading offshore magic circle law firms, [12] the largest of which, Maples and Calder, claimed to have been one of its chief architects. [11]
The ability of foreign institutions to use QIAIFs and the ICAV wrapper, to avoid Irish taxes on Irish assets, has been linked to the bubble in Dublin commercial property, and by implication, the Dublin housing crisis. [30] [31] [33] Despite Dublin's housing crisis, and issues of housing affordability, foreign landlords (also called "cuckoo funds") operate in Ireland on a tax-free basis. [4] [7] It is asserted that property development, and over-inflation of property prices via tax incentives, are favoured historical economic strategies of the two main Irish political parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. [52] [lower-alpha 5]
This risk of QIAIFs was highlighted in 2014 when Central Bank of Ireland consulted the European Systemic Risk Board ("ESRB") after initial, and unsuccessful, lobbying by IFSC tax-law firms to expand the L–QIAIF regime, so as to remove Irish taxation from Irish loan investments. [54] [lower-alpha 6]
In March 2019, the UN Special Rapporter on housing, Leilani Farha, formally wrote to the Irish Government on behalf of the UN, regarding its concerns regarding "preferential tax laws" for foreign investment funds on Irish assets which were compromising the human rights of tenants in Ireland. [6] [7]
In April 2019, Irish technology entrepreneur Paddy Cosgrave launched a Facebook campaign to highlight abuses of QIAIFs and L-QIAIFs, stating: "The L-QIAIF runs the risk of being a weapon of mass destruction". [33] [55]
Corporate haven, corporate tax haven, or multinational tax haven is used to describe a jurisdiction that multinational corporations find attractive for establishing subsidiaries or incorporation of regional or main company headquarters, mostly due to favourable tax regimes, and/or favourable secrecy laws, and/or favourable regulatory regimes.
The Central Bank of Ireland is the Irish member of the Eurosystem and had been the monetary authority for Ireland from 1943 to 1998, issuing the Irish pound. It is also the country's main financial regulatory authority, and since 2014 has been Ireland's national competent authority within European Banking Supervision.
The International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) is an area of central Dublin and part of the CBD established in the 1980s as an urban regeneration area and special economic zone (SEZ) on the derelict state-owned former port authority lands of the reclaimed North Wall and George's Dock areas of the Dublin Docklands. The term has become a metonym for the Irish financial services industry as well as being used as an address and still being classified as an SEZ.
A special-purpose entity is a legal entity created to fulfill narrow, specific or temporary objectives. SPEs are typically used by companies to isolate the firm from financial risk. A formal definition is "The Special Purpose Entity is a fenced organization having limited predefined purposes and a legal personality".
Ireland's Corporate Tax System is a central component of Ireland's economy. In 2016–17, foreign firms paid 80% of Irish corporate tax, employed 25% of the Irish labour force, and created 57% of Irish OECD non-farm value-add. As of 2017, 25 of the top 50 Irish firms were U.S.–controlled businesses, representing 70% of the revenue of the top 50 Irish firms. By 2018, Ireland had received the most U.S. § Corporate tax inversions in history, and Apple was over one–fifth of Irish GDP. Academics rank Ireland as the largest tax haven; larger than the Caribbean tax haven system.
Taxation in Ireland in 2017 came from Personal Income taxes, and Consumption taxes, being VAT and Excise and Customs duties. Corporation taxes represents most of the balance, but Ireland's Corporate Tax System (CT) is a central part of Ireland's economic model. Ireland summarises its taxation policy using the OECD's Hierarchy of Taxes pyramid, which emphasises high corporate tax rates as the most harmful types of taxes where economic growth is the objective. The balance of Ireland's taxes are Property taxes and Capital taxes.
A vulture fund is a hedge fund, private-equity fund or distressed debt fund, that invests in debt considered to be very weak or in default, known as distressed securities. Investors in the fund profit by buying debt at a discounted price on a secondary market and then using numerous methods to subsequently sell the debt for a larger amount than the purchasing price. Debtors include companies, countries, and individuals.
A common contractual fund (CCF) is a collective investment scheme structure in Ireland introduced by the European Communities UCITS Regulations, 2003.
Orphan structure or Orphan SPV or orphaning are terms used in structured finance closely associated with creating SPVs for securitisation transactions where the notional equity of the SPV is deliberately handed over to an unconnected 3rd party who themselves have no control over the SPV; thus the SPV becomes an "orphan" whose equity is controlled by no one.
The National Asset Management Agency is a body created by the government of Ireland in late 2009 in response to the Irish financial crisis and the deflation of the Irish property bubble.
An offshore financial centre (OFC) is defined as a "country or jurisdiction that provides financial services to nonresidents on a scale that is incommensurate with the size and the financing of its domestic economy."
The Double Irish arrangement was a base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) corporate tax avoidance tool used mainly by United States multinationals since the late 1980s to avoid corporate taxation on non-U.S. profits. It was the largest tax avoidance tool in history. By 2010, it was shielding US$100 billion annually in US multinational foreign profits from taxation, and was the main tool by which US multinationals built up untaxed offshore reserves of US$1 trillion from 2004 to 2018. Traditionally, it was also used with the Dutch Sandwich BEPS tool; however, 2010 changes to tax laws in Ireland dispensed with this requirement.
An investment fund is a way of investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These advantages include an ability to:
A tax transparent fund (TTF) - also known as an authorised contractual scheme fund - is the proposed authorised collective investment scheme structure in the United Kingdom once the UK Finance Bill 2012 becomes an act and when the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and the Corporation Tax Act 2010 are amended, sometime mid-2012. TTFs will then have the option to be based in the UK rather than in competing European domiciles. Both Luxembourg and Ireland have already introduced such structures, formally known as the Fond commun de placement (FCP) and the Common contractual fund (CCF).
Dutch Sandwich is a base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) corporate tax tool, used mostly by U.S. multinationals to avoid incurring European Union withholding taxes on untaxed profits as they were being moved to non-EU tax havens. These untaxed profits could have originated from within the EU, or from outside the EU, but in most cases were routed to major EU corporate-focused tax havens, such as Ireland and Luxembourg, by the use of other BEPS tools. The Dutch Sandwich was often used with Irish BEPS tools such as the Double Irish, the Single Malt and the Capital Allowances for Intangible Assets ("CAIA") tools. In 2010, Ireland changed its tax-code to enable Irish BEPS tools to avoid such withholding taxes without needing a Dutch Sandwich.
The OECD G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project is an OECD/G20 project to set up an international framework to combat tax avoidance by multinational enterprises ("MNEs") using base erosion and profit shifting tools. The project, led by the OECD's Committee on Fiscal Affairs, began in 2013 with OECD and G20 countries, in a context of financial crisis and tax affairs. Currently, after the BEPS report has been delivered in 2015, the project is now in its implementation phase, 116 countries are involved including a majority of developing countries. During two years, the package was developed by participating members on an equal footing, as well as widespread consultations with jurisdictions and stakeholders, including business, academics and civil society. And since 2016, the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS provides for its 140 members a platform to work on an equal footing to tackle BEPS, including through peer review of the BEPS minimum standards, and monitoring of implementation of the BEPS package as a whole.
An Irish Section 110 special purpose vehicle (SPV) or section 110 company is an Irish tax resident company, which qualifies under Section 110 of the Irish Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 (TCA) for a special tax regime that enables the SPV to attain "tax neutrality": i.e. the SPV pays no Irish taxes, VAT, or duties.
Conduit OFC and sink OFC is an empirical quantitative method of classifying corporate tax havens, offshore financial centres (OFCs) and tax havens.
Matheson, is an Irish law firm partnership based in the IFSC in Dublin, which specialises in multinational tax schemes, and tax structuring of special purpose vehicles. Matheson is estimated to be Ireland's largest corporate law firm. Matheson state in the International Tax Review that their tax department is: "significantly the largest tax practice group amongst Irish law firms".
Ireland has been labelled as a tax haven or corporate tax haven in multiple financial reports, an allegation which the state has rejected in response. Ireland is on all academic "tax haven lists", including the § Leaders in tax haven research, and tax NGOs. Ireland does not meet the 1998 OECD definition of a tax haven, but no OECD member, including Switzerland, ever met this definition; only Trinidad & Tobago met it in 2017. Similarly, no EU–28 country is amongst the 64 listed in the 2017 EU tax haven blacklist and greylist. In September 2016, Brazil became the first G20 country to "blacklist" Ireland as a tax haven.
Regulator attributes decline to the decision of funds to exit their so-called 'section 110 status'
Fianna Fáil claims that funds have discovered a "new nirvana". Documents also reveal new strategy to avoid regulation.
Figure 3. Foreign Direct Investment - Over half of Irish outbound FDI is routed to Luxembourg
A UN SPECIAL Rapporteur on housing has sent a letter to the Irish government noting that they have facilitated housing financing through "preferential tax laws and weak tenant protections among other measures".
The funds pay no corporation tax, no income tax and no capital gains tax in most cases.
Since then we have retained our position as the leading Irish counsel on ICAVs and to date have advised on 30% of all ICAV subfunds authorised by the Central Bank, which is nearly twice as many as our nearest rival.
Regulation has been described as light touch regulation/unregulated
Irish politicians are "mindlessly in favour" of growing the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), according to a former deputy governor of the Central Bank
The same source in comparing different investment vehicles states that :- Another positive of the Section 110 Company is that there are no regulatory restrictions regarding lending as is the case with a QIF (Qualifying Investor Fund).
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised concerns about instances where individual bankers and lawyers were appointed to hundreds of boards of unregulated special-purpose vehicles in Dublin's International Financial Services Centre.
Concerns have been raised that ICAVs, which are fully exempt from tax on income and profits, are being used by foreign and domestic investors to avoid paying tax on rental income in this country.
Certain funds in operation here are seeing foreign property investors paying no tax on income. The value of property owned in these QIAIFs is in the region of €300 billion.
Internal Department of Finance briefing documents reveal that officials believe there has been "extremely significant" tax leakage due to investors using special purpose vehicles.
The Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicle was a nifty little tax structure introduced last year. Designed to primarily facilitate the transfer of U.S. funds into Dublin, it allows foreign investors to channel their investments through Ireland while paying no tax.
The ICAV is now the most popular QIAIF in Ireland and set up take over from the Investment Company
ANDREA KELLY (PwC Ireland): "We expect most Irish QIAIFs to be structured as ICAVs from now on and given that ICAVs are superior tax management vehicles to Cayman Island SPCs, Ireland should attract substantial re-domiciling business
They'll do this by making commercial property investment, mainly by large foreign landlords, entirely tax-free. This will drive up commercial rents, suppress residential development, put Irish banks at risk, and deprive the State of much-needed funds.
New Gabriel Zucman study claims State shelters more multinational profits than the entire Caribbean
Vulture funds are putting in place new strategies to avoid tax and regulation, the Sunday Business Post reports. Citing a letter from Fianna Fail TD Stephen Donnelly to the Minister for Finance, it says the funds have moved substantial sums from the controversial Section 110 companies and into other entities called L-QIAIFs (loan-originating qualifying alternative investment funds). These do not file public accounts.
However, the new rules combined with the strong legal and regulatory environment in Ireland, the settled and transparent requirements applicable to L-QIAIFs and the fast track authorisation process have already attracted increasing interest in L-QIAIFs among asset managers.
QIAIFs are not permitted to carry on a trading business, with the exception of private equity and venture capital funds, but can establish a property fund structure. This structure consists of a Property Holding Company ("PropCo") which is established as a subsidiary of the QIAIF. An Operating Company ("OpCo") is also often established and a declaration of trust over the shares in favour of the QIAIF is common. As a result, the OpCo gets the benefit of a tax exemption for QIAIFs.
Icavs were introduced last year following lobbying by the funds industry, to tempt certain types of offshore fund business to Ireland. It has since emerged, however, that the structures have been widely utilised to avoid tax on Irish property.
Ireland is a wonderful, special country in many ways. But when it comes to providing foreigners with lax financial regulation or tax trickery, it is a goddamned rogue state
The massive profitability levels of European banks in Ireland suggests that large profits may be reported in Ireland as a tax-avoidance strategy,
The massive profitability levels of European banks in Ireland suggests that large profits may be reported in Ireland as a tax-avoidance strategy,
Irish withholding tax on transfers to Luxembourg can be avoided if structured as a Eurobond
Across our global funds practice, we see many ICAVs being set up as parallel funds to the Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands structures for managers looking to offer leading offshore and onshore fund solutions to their investors. We have advised on some pairing of onshore and offshore vehicles in combined structures.
ESRB: Nonetheless, if not subject to adequate macro and micro–prudential regulation, this activity could grow rapidly and introduce new sources of financial stability risk. It could also raise the financial system's vulnerability to runs, contagion, excessive credit growth and pro-cyclicality.