Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 section 420C

Group relief: relief for certain losses of non-resident companies

Section 420C sets out the conditions under which an Irish-resident parent company may claim group relief for losses of a subsidiary resident in another EU/EEA Member State, and the rules governing how such relief is given.

• A "relevant foreign loss" must satisfy a series of conditions: it must be of a type surrenderable under Irish group relief rules, computed under the surrendering state's tax law, not attributable to an Irish branch or agency, and unavailable for relief anywhere else — in Ireland, the surrendering state, or any other EU Member State.
• A relevant foreign loss must also be a "trapped loss" — one that cannot be set off against profits of any accounting period of the surrendering company or of any other company in the surrendering state, meaning all possibilities for relief in that country have been exhausted.
• Where the conditions are met, the relevant foreign loss is treated as a relevant trading loss under sections 420A and 420B, but relief is given only after all other loss reliefs (including section 397 carry-back) have been claimed; losses arising from arrangements designed to secure group relief are excluded.
• Claims must generally be made within two years of the end of the accounting period in which the loss is incurred; a later claim is permitted where a loss initially ineligible because it could be carried forward subsequently becomes permanently unavailable in the surrendering state.