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Budget 2027 maintains a fiscally prudent stance with no
broad personal income tax rate cuts, while enhancing
targeted supports for households, business investment
incentives, housing supply and climate action.
The below provides a brief overview of the more relevant
changes that may be of interest to corporate entities followed
by a table providing a general overview of the more significant
tax changes brought in by Budget 2027, across all taxes.
Measures aimed at the corporate sector strategically
reinforce Ireland’s reputation as an innovative base, providing
enhanced incentives for research and supporting capital
market participation for indigenous enterprises.
A central component of the budget’s innovation strategy is
the substantial enhancement of the R&D tax credit. The rate
is being increased from 30% to 35%. This enhancement
provides significant encouragement for both multinational
corporations (MNCs) and indigenous companies to base their
high-value innovation activities in Ireland.
Furthermore, the measure includes vital liquidity and
compliance improvements for smaller claimants.The first-year
payment minimum threshold is being raised from €75,000
to €87,500. This adjustment directly enhances cash flow for
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) engaged in R&D,
accelerating their access to state funding.
In the financial services sector, stability and technical clarity
are prioritised. The exit tax rate applied to payments made
from Irish funds and equivalent offshore funds to Irish
individual investors has been reduced from 41% to 38%. This
adjustment aims to improve retail participation in investment
funds, as it enhances net returns for non-resident and
domestic investors.
Combined with the unchanged 9% value-added tax (VAT) on
property-related services, Ireland’s fund ecosystem retains
competitive cost structures.
In support of capital markets, a new market cap exemption
threshold of €1 billion is introduced for Irish SMEs and startups
trading on regulated markets. For companies falling below
this threshold, the standard 1% stamp duty charge paid on
share transactions will no longer apply. The SME marketcap
threshold stamp duty exemption is aimed at attracting
increased equity financing for growth companies listed on
regulated markets, bolstering liquidity and investor appetite.
To stimulate entrepreneurial activity and reward risk-takers,
the Capital Gains Tax (CGT) Revised Entrepreneur Relief has
been significantly strengthened. The overall lifetime limit on
gains eligible for the reduced 10% CGT rate is increased
from €1 million to €1.5 million. This 50% increase applies to
qualifying disposals made on or after 1 January 2026. This
policy signals a strong commitment to supporting successful
founders and incentivises them to reinvest their capital within
the Irish economy, thereby promoting further start-up creation
and economic dynamism.
In support of capital markets, a new market cap exemption
threshold of €1 billion is introduced for Irish SMEs and startups
trading on regulated markets. For companies falling below
this threshold, the standard 1% stamp duty charge paid on
share transactions will no longer apply.
This measure is positioned as essential for enhancing the
growth prospects of homegrown businesses, particularly
those seeking to secure funding or scale internationally. The
Key Employee Engagement Programme (KEEP) has also been
extended until the end of 2028.
Although from a personal income tax perspective Budget
2027 has a much more targeted and measured approach
to what we’ve seen in previous years, the enhancements
to R&D incentives, fund taxation and SME reliefs should
hopefully lower effective tax burdens for corporates and
investors, foster greater deal activity in growth sectors
and prop up Ireland’s positioning as a tax-efficient hub for
innovation finance.
The below table provides a brief summary of the pertinent
tax changes brought in by Budget 2027. We now wait for
the publication of Finance Bill 2026, to see exactly how
these measures will be implemented.
| Tax Area | Measure | Key Change/Rate | Effective Date (or Period) | Potential Impact / Client Action |
| Corporate & SME Tax | Directly or indirectly, individually or in aggregate | Treated as if itself on the Entity List | Same restrictions as parent entity apply | Same restrictions as parent entity apply |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unlisted foreign entity owned ≥ 50% by MEU List party | Directly or indirectly, individually or in aggregate |
Treated as if itself is an MEU | Same restrictions as parent MEU entity apply |
|
| Unlisted foreign entity owned ≥ 50% by an SDN* | Directly or indirectly, individually or in aggregate |
Treated as if itself an SDN* | Same restrictions as the SDN owner | |
| Financial Services | Exit Tax (Investment Funds) | Reduced rate on fund payments to individuals | 41% to 38% | Aims to encourage greater retail participation by Irish individuals in domestic investment funds. |
| SME/Start-up Stamp Duty Exemption | New Market Cap Threshold in respect of shares traded on regulated markets. | Up to €1 billion (Exemption applies) | Supports capital market liquidity and growth for indigenous SMEs and start-ups. | |
| Indirect Taxes (VAT & Excise) | VAT on Hospitality/Hairdressing | Reduced rate introduced | 13.5% to 9% (from 1 July 2026) | Significant support for the services sector, aiding more than 150,000 jobs facing cost pressures. |
| VAT on Gas and Electricity | Reduced rate extension | 9% extended until 31 Dec 2030 | Provides long-term certainty and relief on essential energy costs for households and businesses. | |
| Carbon Tax (Auto-Fuels) | Increased rate per tonne of CO2 | €63.50 to €71.00 (from 8 Oct 2025) | Immediate increase in the cost of petrol and diesel; future cost increases for home heating fuels (May 2026). | |
| Tobacco Excise Duty | Increase per packet of 20 cigarettes | +50 cent (from 7 Oct 2025) | Will push the cost of a popular packet of 20 cigarettes towards €19. | |
| Housing Supply & Development | VAT on New Apartments | Reduced sales rate | 13.5% to 9% | Direct reduction in construction costs, intended to lower the final price of new apartment units. |
| Derelict Property Tax (DPT) | New tax to replace Derelict Sites Levy | Rate not < 7%=”” of=”” market=”” value=”” (implementation=”” /> | Allows Revenue to enforce a minimum 7% annual charge on the market value of vacant land. | |
| Employment & Global Mobility | SARP Minimum Income Threshold | Increased threshold | €125,000 (from 2026) | Requires review of all current/planned expatriate assignments; employees below €125k will cease to qualify for the relief. |
| Foreign Earnings Deduction (FED) | Increased maximum relief; Scope widened | €50,000 (from 2026) and now includes Philippines & Turkey | Improves competitiveness for deploying employees to/from expanded market list (Philippines, Turkey). | |
| Company Car BIK Relief (€10k OMV reduction) | Relief Tapering Schedule | €10,000 (2026); €5,000 (2027); €2,500 (2028); Abolished (2029) | Requires immediate review of corporate fleet policies due to rapid BIK relief withdrawal starting in 2027. | |
| Personal Tax (Income & USC) | USC 2% Rate Band Ceiling | Increased by €1,318 (to €28,700) | 1 January 2026 | Provides marginal tax relief for middle-income earners; protects minimum wage earners from moving into the top USC rate band. |
| Rent Tax Credit | Extended (Value remains €1,000 p.a.) | Extended to end of 2028 | Confirms continued cost-of-living support for eligible tenants for three additional years. | |
| Mortgage Interest Relief | Extended (reduced value in final year) | Extended for 2 years (2025 and 2026) | Provides temporary support for homeowners but note the relief value diminishes in 2026. |
BBC One premiered the long-awaited The Celebrity Traitors, and the game didn’t wait too long to start.
Claudia Winkleman greeted the celebrity players at a graveyard where each grave had the name of a contestant.
“We’re starting as we mean…
Nikhil InamdarBBC News, Mumbai
Getty ImagesIndia’s ravenous appetite for stock market investing has sparked a fundraising gold rush in Asia’s third largest economy, with its booming initial public offerings (IPO) market undeterred by trade tariffs or global uncertainties.
Major companies – from global co-working firm WeWork India and South Korean conglomerate LG Electronics’ India arm to financial services giant Tata Capital – have raised record-setting amounts of money just this week, offering their shares to investors through IPOs.
Unlike the secondary markets, where investors buy and sell existing stocks of companies, IPOs are used by privately held firms to sell their shares to investors for the first time, and debut on the public markets.
Some 79 companies raked in $11.5bn (£8.58bn) in the first nine months of 2025, while a string of other issues in the final three months of the year is expected to bring in another $10-11bn, pushing India’s IPO market to more than $20bn this year, according to investment bank Kotak Mahindra Capital Company. And this is not counting the fundraising done by India’s small and medium-sized enterprises.
Companies operating in a wide range of sectors including new-age tech firms, e-commerce majors, retail, infrastructure and healthcare players are tapping the IPO market.
“This has given Indian investors the breadth [of investment opportunities] that’s not seen in other countries,” V Jayasankar, managing director at Kotak Mahindra Capital Company, told the BBC.
“Apart from institutional money, systematic investment plans [or fixed monthly contributions] by mom-and-pop investors in mutual funds has kept flows into IPOs robust,” Mr Jayasankar said.
Getty ImagesBesides high demand for new investment opportunities, the market is on fire also because India’s growth over the past decade has birthed a strong pipeline of companies across diverse industries that have reached a certain scale and maturity, according to Abhinav Bharti, head of India equity capital markets at US investment banking giant JP Morgan.
“This is just the start of the trend, and we should see India to be a regular $20bn IPO market on an ongoing basis, if not higher,” Mr Bharti said on the company’s YouTube channel.
But while this wave of new share offerings signals a maturing of India’s investing landscape, the euphoria also demands caution, experts say.
“There’s a lot of exuberance. Investors need to be selective and study the financials of the companies they choose. They must not invest blindly,” says Kranthi Bathini of WealthMills Securities.
The IPO frenzy has hit a fever pitch even as Indian stock markets overall have delivered lacklustre returns to investors.
India’s benchmark Nifty-50 index of its largest and most liquid companies has clocked barely 6% this year, while returns from indices tracking small and mid-sized firms are negative.
Besides concerns about worsening global geopolitics and US President Donald Trump’s 50% tariffs on India, expensive share valuations have worried analysts.
But ironically, this could be contributing to the high interest in debuting companies.
“Investors currently see IPOs as a better place to make returns because of the chance of a 15-20% pop in the stock price on listing,” said Mr Jayasankar.
However estimates suggest that half of the IPOs that have debuted this year are trading below their listing price. Kotak’s own analysis shows that only 43 of the 79 companies that listed this year have given positive returns.
Mr Jayasankar says this could partly be because they were mis-priced (sold expensive) or because the overall market sentiment is low.
Also, the majority of the companies hitting the markets in the first nine months were smaller firms, which tend to be more volatile.
“The last quarter of the year tends to be skewed towards larger or better-quality companies hitting the market,” Mr Jayasankar said.
Getty ImagesWhile Indians have been lapping up new issues, there has been a distinct lack of interest in these IPOs from foreign investors, who’ve sold over $20bn in Indian equities this year.
“Global investors are in wait-and-watch mode,” said Mr Bathini. “India has gone from being the most favoured nation to the least favoured nation for them in a matter of months, because of tariffs and other uncertainties.”
Their lack of participation in the IPO market reflects an overall reduction in portfolio funds to India, he said.
This, if anything, is an obvious signal that domestic mom-and-pop investors are getting swayed by euphoria rather than fundamentals.
“There is an entire industry working to first build and then maintain this mood,” writes economics commentator Vivek Kaul in a piece for Mumbai Mirror newspaper. This includes investment bankers, analysts at stock brokerages and fund managers, he says.
The frenzy is fun, says Mr Kaul, and a game of perceptions and hype, but “not for turning a modest investment into lasting financial security”.
But Indian investors do not appear to be in a mood to listen.
With companies such as Walmart-backed PhonePe, India’s largest mobile telecoms giant Jio and unicorns [tech start-ups valued at over $1bn] such as Groww and Meesho hitting the markets in the coming months, India’s IPO party is likely to continue, at least for some more time.
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Elon Musk has agreed to settle a $128m (£100m) lawsuit brought by four former top executives at Twitter, now X, over unpaid severance when he took over the company.
The executives, who include former chief Parag Agrawal, argued that Mr Musk fired them “without reason” after he bought Twitter in 2022 and denied them severance payments.
“The parties have reached a settlement and the settlement requires certain conditions to be met in the near term,” attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote in a court filing last week. They did not disclose the terms of the settlement.
The suit, filed last year, is one of several legal challenges over unpaid severance for workers who were laid off after Musk took over.
Lawyers for the former Twitter executives, and for Mr Musk and X, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the settlement.
The former top brass – Mr Agrawal, former chief financial officer Ned Segal, former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and former general counsel Sean Edgett – contended in their lawsuit that they are owed one year’s salary and stock awards, under a years-old severance plan.
They also said Musk’s move was part of a pattern of refusing to pay former staff what they were due.
In August, Mr Musk and X agreed to settle a separate lawsuit filed by roughly 6,000 former rank-and-file Twitter employees who argued they were owed $500m in severance pay.
Mr Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 for $44bn, after initially trying to back out of his offer. After the acquisition closed, he immediately moved to fire top leaders at the company, including the four executives. Mr Musk slashed Twitter’s workforce by more than half.
In their lawsuit, the former top officials contend that Mr Musk was frustrated about being forced to complete the purchase and that the billionaire falsely accused them of misconduct to push them out.
Sean CoughlanRoyal correspondent
Millie Pilkington/ King’s FoundationKing Charles says he wants to inspire a “sense of determination” to protect the…
