Finance Act 2011

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Attachment of debt.

74.— The Principal Act is amended—

(a) in subsection (1) of section 1002, by substituting the following for paragraph (c):

“(c) Where the Revenue Commissioners issue a notice of attachment in respect of any amount of money due by the relevant person to the taxpayer as emoluments under a contract of service, the notice may provide for the payment by the relevant person of the amount of the default out of the emoluments, after taking account of statutory deductions, over a period specified in the notice.”,

(b) in subsection (8) of section 1002, by substituting “by” for “at the suit of an officer of”, and

(c) by inserting the following after section 904J—

“Power of inspection: notices of attachment.

904K.— (1) In this section—

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

‘books, records or other documents’ includes—

(a) any records used in the business of a relevant person whether—

(i) comprised in bound volume, loose-leaf binders or other loose-leaf filing system, loose-leaf ledger sheets, pages, folios or cards, or

(ii) kept on microfilm, magnetic tape or in any non-legible form (by the use of electronics or otherwise) which is capable of being reproduced in a legible form,

(b) every electronic or other automatic means, if any, by which any such thing in non-legible form is so capable of being reproduced,

(c) documents in manuscript, documents which are typed, printed, stencilled or created by any other mechanical or partly mechanical process in use from time to time and documents which are produced by any photographic or photostatic process, and

(d) correspondence and records of other communications between a qualifying lender and an individual having a qualifying mortgage loan from that qualifying lender;

‘relevant employee’ means an employee of a relevant person who by virtue of his or her employment—

(a) is in a position to produce or have produced, as appropriate, any books, records or other documents,

(b) is in a position to furnish or have furnished, as appropriate, any information, explanations or particulars relating to any books, records or other documents, or

(c) otherwise can give assistance for the purposes of paragraph (a) or (b),

to an authorised officer, as may be required under subsection (3);

‘relevant person’ and ‘return’ have the same meaning as in section 1002.

(2) An authorised officer may at all reasonable times enter any premises or place of business of a relevant person for the purpose of auditing a return.

(3) An authorised officer may require a relevant person or a relevant employee to produce books, records or other documents and to furnish information, explanations and particulars and to give all assistance, which the authorised officer reasonably requires for the purposes of his or her audit under subsection (2).

(4) An authorised officer may make extracts from or copies of all or any part of the books, records or other documents or other material made available to him or her or require that copies of books, records, or other documents be made available to him or her, in exercising or performing his or her powers or duties under this section.

(5) An authorised officer when exercising or performing his or her powers or duties under this section shall, on request, produce his or her authorisation for the purposes of this section.

(6) A relevant employee who fails to comply with the requirements of the authorised officer in the exercise or performance of the authorised officer’s powers or duties under this section shall be liable to a penalty of €1,265.

(7) A relevant person who fails to comply with the requirements of the authorised officer in the exercise or performance of the authorised officer’s powers or duties under this section shall be liable to a penalty of €19,045 and if that failure continues a further penalty of €2,535 for each day on which the failure continues.”.