Stamp Duties Consolidation Act 1999 section 48

Stamp duty and value-added tax

Section 48 provides that stamp duty on a conveyance or transfer on sale of property (other than stocks, marketable securities or insurance policies) is calculated on the VAT-exclusive consideration.

• Where property is sold and VAT applies to the transaction, the stamp duty charge is based on the consideration after excluding any VAT chargeable under section 3 of the Value-Added Tax Consolidation Act 2010.
• This exclusion applies specifically to instruments falling under the "CONVEYANCE or TRANSFER on sale of any property other than stocks or marketable securities or a policy of insurance or a policy of life insurance" heading in Schedule 1.
• Unless informed otherwise, Revenue assume that the consideration stated in a conveyance is already a VAT-exclusive figure.
• Where a transaction includes both VAT-exempt and VAT-inclusive elements (for example, a site purchase combined with a building contract), the VAT must be stripped out of the VAT-inclusive element before calculating the stampable consideration.