One of the significant issues addressed in the report was entitled ‘confronting unlawful company behaviour’. This is an express statement of intent by the ODCE on the strict importance placed on compliance for Directors of Irish limited company’s!

The report measures the standard of Irish corporate governance by the number of reports made by auditors and complaints by the general public. Reports of suspected ‘indictable offences’ have long been on the agenda and an increase in reported offences were made during the years 2008 to 2009. This is not surprising given the economic downturn leading up to and including 2009, probably the worst year of all and the negative spin off effect this normally has on compliance issues, with more companies under economic pressure.

If you have any questions on your own limited company that you need to discuss please contact me at O’Mahony Donnelly ….Michael O’Mahony FCCA

1. The legal obligation on companies to maintain the 7 statutory registers (minute book). The O.D.C.E. (office of director of corporate enforcement) could request sight of this register at any time!

2. Company Directors who think they can walk away from a company are now more likely to face legal sanctions brought by the ODCE. There is a legal procedure to dispose of a limited company and if it is not followed then Directors could be prosecuted.

3. A new companies consolidation bill 2010 is in process and expected to become law sometime in 2014.

The new Act will likely bring single director companies, a constitution to replace the existing Memorandum/Articles of Association, new company name and certificate of incorporation.

If you would like to discuss any issue surrounding company law or directors obligations then contact me at O’Mahony Donnelly….Michael O’Mahony FCCA

Directors residency is a significant and also potentially costly issue when incorporating an Irish limited company.

The current requirement for forming an Irish limited company is that at least one of the two Directors is an EEA resident (EU plus Norway, Iceland & Liechtenstein). Previously one of the Directors had to be Irish resident.

Without an EEA resident Director then the company is required to take out a s43 bond insurance policy, which costs a substantial sum.

You may be an entrepreneur, completely new to business or someone who is unfamiliar with the current legal position for Directors.  If you would like further information and assistance with incorporating an Irish limited company please see O’Mahony Donnelly Contact Details.

These changes will exempt Irish limited companies from corporation tax for a period of three years form 01/01/2009. There are conditions and limits, I can provide further details if you would like to contact me, but this will benefit Irish business to the tune of thousands of euro. if you are thinking of starting a new business here I would strongly recommend you contact me.

Some of the key conditions are as follows:

a. the company is incorporated after 14/10/2008 and does not start trading until after 01/01/2009.

b. separate exemptions are available for each new trade.

c. Income cannot be from a trade already in existence at 01/01/2009

Many of my clients have therefore delayed the start up of their activity until 2009.

If you have Incorporated a new limited company prior to 14/10/2008 and have been delaying trading until 2009 you will not meet the conditions above. It is therefore worth considering the benefits of incorporating a 2nd new limited company to avail of the tax relief but you should ensure first that the benefits i.e. reduced corporate tax bill outweigh the costs of incorporating a new company.