Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005

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Payment of contributions and keeping of records.

[1993 s14(1)]

17.—(1) Regulations may provide for—

(a) the time and manner of payment of employment contributions,

(b) the collection and the recovery of, and the furnishing of returns by employers in relation to, employment contributions,

(c) the charging of interest on arrears of employment contributions,

(d) the waiving of interest due on arrears of employment contributions,

(e) the estimation of amounts due in respect of employment contributions and appeals in relation to those estimates,

(f) the furnishing of returns by employers in relation to periods of insurable employment,

(g) the deduction by an employer from the reckonable earnings of an employed contributor of any employment contribution reasonably believed by the employer to be due by the contributor, and adjustment in any case of over-deduction, and

(h) any matter ancillary or incidental to any of the matters referred to in any of paragraphs (a) to (g).

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1), regulations under that subsection may provide for—

(a) the assignment of any function relating to any matter referred to in that subsection to the Collector-General or to any person engaged under contract by the Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, for this purpose,

(b) the assignment to the Collector-General of any function conferred on the Minister by section 272 and the modification for that purpose of any provision of that section,

(c) the inspection by or on behalf of the Revenue Commissioners of records prescribed under subsection (5),

(d) treating, for the purpose of any right to benefit, contributions paid after the due dates as paid on those dates or on any later dates that may be prescribed, or as not having been paid, and

(e) treating as paid, for the purpose of any right to benefit, employment contributions payable by an employer in respect of an insured person which have not been paid, where the failure to pay those contributions is shown not to have been with the consent or connivance of the insured person or attributable to any negligence on the part of the insured person.

(3) Nothing in any regulations under this section affects the liability of the employer under section 13 (4) to pay employment contributions.

(4) The provisions of any enactment, regulation or rule of court relating to—

(a) the inspection of records, the estimation, collection and recovery (including the provisions relating to the offset of taxes and appropriation of payments in Chapter 5 of Part 42 of the Act of 1997) of, or the furnishing of returns by employers in relation to, income tax, or

(b) appeals in relation to income tax, or

(c) the publication of names of persons under section 1086 of the Act of 1997,

shall apply in relation to employment contributions which the Collector-General is obliged to collect as if the contributions were an amount of income tax which the employer was liable to remit to the Collector-General under the Income Tax (Employments) (Consolidated) Regulations 2001 ( S.I. No. 559 of 2001 ).

(5) For the purposes of this Part, regulations may require employers to keep any records that may be prescribed in relation to the earnings of persons employed by them and the periods during which those persons were employed, and to retain those records for prescribed periods.