Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 section 548

Valuation of assets

Section 548 sets out the rules for determining the market value of assets for capital gains tax purposes, covering quoted shares, unquoted shares, and units in unit trusts.

• Market value is the price an asset might reasonably be expected to fetch on a sale in the open market, with no reduction for the effect of placing a large quantity of assets on the market at the same time.
• Shares quoted on the Irish Stock Exchange Official List or the London Stock Exchange Daily Official List are valued using specific formulae based on published prices and recorded bargains, taking whichever produces the lower figure.
• Unquoted shares are valued on the assumption that a prudent prospective purchaser has access to all the information they might reasonably require to make an informed purchase from a willing vendor at arm's length.
• Units in a unit trust are valued at the buying (bid) price published by the managers on the relevant date, or on the latest previous date if no price was published on that date.