State scraps stamp duty on Irish junior market trades

The Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, has published an order on Wednesday which will exempt share trades on Ireland’s junior stock market from stamp duty.

The move, which was first announced by Mr Noonan in his annual budget statement in October, is understood to have been held up as the European Commission reviewed it for competition reasons.

Stamp duty on Irish share trades is currently levied at a rate of 1 per cent.

Scrapping the duty on trades on the Enterprise Securities Market, which takes effect on June 5th, will cost the State an estimated €5 million in a full year, according to the Department of Finance.

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Separately, Mr Noonan said last October that his officials would carry out a review this year into the future of the 1 per cent stamp duty on share trading in Irish companies in general.

The UK has a 0.5 per cent stamp duty rate on stock transactions, while the levy in France and Italy is 0.2 per cent. The Irish Stock Exchange has been lobbying for years to lower the Irish rate to the UK one, at a minimum.