DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland will look at the merits of cutting the 6 percent rate of stamp duty on commercial property sales in the 2012 budget, the country's finance minister said on Saturday.
Michael Noonan said the idea of cutting the rate was raised during an economic forum in Dublin as a way of reviving
Ireland's commercial property sector, which is stuck in the doldrums, partly due to a lower 1 percent rate of stamp duty on commercial property sales in the neighbouring UK market.
"The suggestion is that an American investor coming in to buy in Dublin his first 6 percent of profit goes to pay stamp duty and if we were thinking of changing that now is a good time because the take-up in the stamp duty is so low anyway," Noonan told reporters.
"It's always at the bottom of the market that you can change things. I am not saying that we will do that but it is one of the things I am going to analyse."
Activity in the Irish commercial property market has been halted due to uncertainty over government plans to retrospectively ban upward-only rent reviews on commercial leases created prior to February 28, 2010.
Ireland's government needs to get the commercial property sector moving again in order to ensure that the state-run National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), which has a huge exposure to the sector, does not face further write-downs on its portfolio.
(Reporting by Carmel Crimmins; Editing by Alison Birrane)
