Taxation of sports facility project funds to be reviewed to boost amenities

The Government has said it will review the taxation of development funds set up by sporting bodies to build or upgrade their facilities.

In a budget-day announcement, Minister for Finance Michael McGrath said he planned to review the tax system to help national sporting bodies invest in facilities.

“This will involve examining the tax treatment of long-term strategic development funds established by approved sporting bodies to promote capital investment in our sports facilities,” he told the Dáil during his budget speech.

The Minister said this would entail looking at how the “tax system can be utilised to further support these organisations with the upgrade of their facilities or the development of new ones”.

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Mr McGrath said the review of the taxation of capital development plans for sporting facilities would be concluded this year.

“Ireland has a rich sporting culture and I believe we need to fully utilise the opportunities to invest in our sporting facilities and clubs. Our tax system currently provides a number of reliefs to sporting organisations and charities. I believe there is potential to do more,” Mr McGrath said.

The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media secured an extra €40 million in core funding, to give it a total budget of €1.1 billion next year, which included €183 million allocated towards a range of priorities in sport.

The extra resources included additional funding for Sport Ireland to be put towards efforts to increase female participation in sport, as well as more money for high-performance sports units.

The budget saw an increase of €2 million in core funding for national governing sporting bodies, as well as €1 million in additional funding to support high-performance athletes during the year of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Funding for programmes aimed at increasing women’s involvement in sport would be doubled, according to Minister of State for sport Thomas Byrne. “This funding will significantly increase the opportunities for female participation in sport at every level,” he said.