This income tax offset applies to those who have been approved by the Revenue Commissioners under Section 482 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997.
An individual who incurs expenditure on the repair, maintenace and restoration of an approved heritage building or garden can offset the expenditure against his income from all sources. Obviously, in order for this section to be attractive, you need income from elsewhere to be able to offset the expenditure. Take Bantry House as an example, whatever expenditure is incurred in the house and gardens can be offset against any tax owing on monies earned from admissions, concerts, the cafe and whatever investments they may have elsewhere (the offset is not restricted to income from the house). Michael O’Leary used to be the best example but I think he de-listed most likely because he didn’t want people wandering through his house.
In addition if repairs or maintainance are carried out to an approved object such as a picture, sculpture, book, manuscript, jewellery, installation of security, provision of public liability insurance, up to euro 6,350 per year can be offset whereas there is no cap on the amount clawed back under the repair, maintenance and restoration of the building or garden itself.
The property has to be open to the public for not less than sixty days per year and forty of those have to run between May to September inclusive. The access price has to be reasonable and access to a substantial part of the property must be given, ie not just one or two rooms.
There are slightly different rules for passive investors, ie for somebody who has taken an interest in the building from the original owner. I am guessing that this applies to foreign owners, churches etc but I would need to clarify this.
