Finance Act, 1992

• Permanent Page URL

Amendment of section 31 (power to obtain from certain persons particulars of transactions with and documents concerning tax liability of taxpayers) of Finance Act, 1979.

238.— Section 31 of the Finance Act, 1979 , is hereby amended—

(a) in paragraph (a) of subsection (1)—

(i) by the substitution of the following definition for the definition of “an authorised officer”:

“‘an authorised officer’ means an officer of the Revenue Commissioners authorised by them in writing to exercise the powers conferred by this section;”,

(ii) by the substitution of the following definition for the definition of “documents ”:

“‘documents’ means those records required to be kept or retained under the provisions of section 6 (as amended by section 231 of the Finance Act, 1992) of the Finance Act, 1968 ;”,

and

(iii) by the addition of the following definition after the definition of “tax”:

“Tax Acts' has the meaning assigned to it by section 155 (2) of the Corporation Tax Act, 1976 .”,

(b) by the substitution for subsection (2) of the following subsection:

“(2) Where a person (in this section referred to as ‘the taxpayer’)—

(a) delivers to an inspector a return or statement of the income, profits or gains arising to him from—

(i) any business (past or present) carried on by him or his spouse, or

(ii) any business (past or present) with whose management either of them was concerned at a material time,

and the inspector is not satisfied with the return or statement,

or

(b) fails to deliver a return or statement as aforesaid which he is required to deliver under any provision of the Tax Acts,

the inspector may serve on the taxpayer a notice in writing stating—

(I) that he is not satisfied with the return or statement delivered to him, or that such return or statement has not been delivered to him, as the case may be, and

(II) that he has requested an authorised officer to serve notice under this section on persons who, in relation to the taxpayer, are subject to this section.”,

and

(c) by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (9):

“(9) An authorised officer may examine any documents furnished or made available for inspection under this section and may take copies of, or extracts from, them or retain them for the purposes of any legal proceedings instituted by an officer of the Revenue Commissioners or for the purposes of any criminal proceedings.”.