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ByrneWallace I Why Ireland? A guide to doing business in Ireland I 29case it must report certain investordetails to the Irish Revenue and the taxliability arises on the investor on a selfassessment basis. However, such anexit charge tax only arises to the extentand only in respect of Irish resident orordinarily resident investors.Many categories of Irish residentinvestors are entitled to an exemptionfrom this exit tax including pensionschemes, insurance companies, otherfunds, charities, approved retirementfunds, approved minimum retirementfunds, special savings, incentive accountsand PRSAs and credit unions.THE IRISH COLLECTIVE ASSETMANAGEMENT VEHICLE BILL 2014The new Irish Collective Asset-Management Vehicle Bill 2014 (the“ICAV”) is expected to be introducedover the coming months. The ICAV willbe a new corporate structure tailoredspecifically to provide for Irish investmentfunds. The introduction of this newstructure will inhance Ireland’s attactiveas a place of domicile for collectiveinvestment funds.Presently investments are structured aspublic limited companies under PartXIII of the Companies Act 1990. Whilstthis is proven to be an effective formof governance, not every requirementis necessarily applicable to investmentcompanies and thus ICAVs, followingtheir enactment, will only be subject torequirements that are relevant to them, inturn reducing the administrative burdenand costs.One of the main advantages provided bythe new ICAV structure will be the ICAVsability to self-elect their classification. ForUS tax purposes, ICAV will be treated asa partnership thus allowing them to avoidadverse tax consequences. This differsto the status of and Irish public limitedcompany which currently is not able to“check the box” for US tax purposes.SERVICE PROVIDERSFunds established in Ireland are requiredto appoint (i) an Irish-based custodianto act as a custodian/trustee of Irishauthorised funds for the safe keeping ofthe funds assets and (ii) an Irish basedadministrator responsible for maintainingthe accounts and records of the fund.Custodians and administrators mustbe approved by the Central Bank. Theinvestment manager for an Irish fund isnot required to be located in Ireland butmust seek the approval of the CentralBank. A fund set up as an investmentcompany must have at least two Irishresident directors. The managementcompany of unit trust or a CCF must alsohave at least two Irish resident directors.REDOMICILE OF FUNDSTO IRELANDThe Companies (MiscellaneousProvisions) Act 2009 enables non-Irishfund companies to redomicile into Irelandon the basis that the migrating fundcompany will continue its existence asa company registered under Irish law.This is likely to be of particular interest topromoters of alternative investment fundssuch as hedge funds, real estate fundsand private equity funds who wish toredomicile their offshore funds to aregulated, well-serviced OECD and EUjurisdiction. In particular, the legislationwill benefit the many hedge fundmanagers seeking to avail of thedistribution opportunities afforded by theUCITS Directive and for these preparingfor the introduction of the proposedAlternative Investment Fund ManagersDirective, which currently contemplatesthe granting of an EU marketing passportto EU domiciled funds only.