Hi Brendan,
I have done some reading into this today to see if offshore accounts can be used by standard taxpayers to avoid the new high rate of DIRT. Unfortunately, no.
EU deposit interest is taxed at the same rate regardless of which EU country you have your deposit in. The reason being that all EU income needs to be treated the same way.
My understanding was always that non-EU deposit interest was taxed at the marginal rate. That used to be the case.
Non-EU deposit interest is taxed at the marginal rate if you are in the upper band. i.e. 41% if your income is in the 41% bracket.
However, the Finance Act 2013, has a separate provision, for non-EU deposit interest, where the person is a standard tax payer, and the interest was earned after 8 February 2012, which stipulates that the DIRT tax rate supersedes the standard tax rate. i.e. a standard taxpayer would need to pay 41% from 1 January 2014.
I assume the Finance Act 2014 will clear up if non-EU deposit interest is subject to PRSI.