The Competent Authorities of Ireland and the United States have entered into an agreement concerning the treatment of Common Contractual Funds (CCF) under the Ireland-US tax treaty of 28 July 1997. The agreement was entered into at the request of Ireland in order to clarify the transparent nature of the CCF and in order to preserve the entitlement to benefits under the Convention of Irish resident unit holders in a CCF.

Specifically, it had come to the attention of the Competent Authorities that difficulties could have arisen concerning the application of the tax treaty to income received by Irish unit holders in a CCF. This resulted from the provisions of Sub-para. 1(d) of Art. 4 of the tax treaty and Art. 1 of the Protocol to the tax treaty. The Competent Authorities have agreed that in order to reach the result intended by the Contracting States, a CCF will not be regarded as a resident of Ireland for the purposes of Art. 4. Accordingly, under the first sentence of Art. 1 of the Protocol, a unit holder in a CCF will be entitled to benefits under the tax treaty, provided that the unit holder is a resident of Ireland that satisfies the requirements of Art. 23 (Limitation on benefits).