Tax implications - property owned by company

[fistophobia]

Any advice here is welcome.

Mother owns a company, has about 400K in cash, company owns a property let to a business tenant.
Its a high profile building, probably worth 2M.
Shes thinking about making a will - the company is a part of this consideration.
Any ideas what to do here?
The issue is around transfer of shares in the company, against liquidation now.
She is asking us for ideas, prior to making a will.
Its myself and one sibling are the beneficiaries.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

With these amounts of money you need to pay for good tax advice - and probably not from the person who recommended buying the property through a company.

The main issue is that there is no CGT for an individual on death.
So your mother should not transfer the shares to you now.
Of course, you will have a CAT liability.

But you will inherit a company with a big unrealised CGT liability.
It might be better to bite the bullet and pay this now via liquidating the company.

If your mother leaves you a company with assets of €2.4m will it be worth €2.4m or will the probate value be reduced by the unrealised CGT liability?

Brendan