Finance Act, 1990

Surcharge for late submission of returns.

25.—(1) Section 48 of the Finance Act, 1986 , is hereby amended—

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

(i) by the insertion of the following definition:

“‘chargeable person’ means, in relation to a year of assessment or an accounting period—

(i) a person who is a chargeable person for the purposes of Chapter II of Part I of the Finance Act, 1988 , or

(ii) a person who is chargeable to capital gains tax;”,

and

(ii) by the substitution, in the definition of “specified date”, of the following subparagraphs for subparagraph (II) of paragraph (i):

“(II) as respects any of the years 1987-88, 1988-89 or 1989-90, the 31st day of December in that year of assessment,

(IIa) as respects the year 1990-91 or any subsequent year of assessment, the 31st day of January in the year following the year of assessment,”,

and

(b) in paragraph (b) of subsection (1), by the substitution of the following subparagraphs for subparagraphs (iii), (iv) and (v):

“(iii) where a person delivers a return of income on or before the specified date in relation to the return of income but the inspector, by reason of being dissatisfied with any statement of profits or gains arising to the person from any trade or profession which is contained in the return of income, requires the person, by notice in writing served on him under section 174 of the Income Tax Act, 1967 , to do any thing, the person shall be deemed not to have delivered the return of income on or before the specified date unless he does that thing within the time specified in the notice, and

(iv) references to such of the specified sections as are applied, subject to any necessary modifications, in relation to capital gains tax by paragraph 3 of Schedule 4 to the Capital Gains Tax Act, 1975 , shall be construed as including references to those sections as so applied.”,

and

(c) by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (2) (other than the proviso thereto):

“(2) Where, in relation to a year of assessment or accounting period, a chargeable person fails to deliver a return of income on or before the specified date in relation to the return of income, any amount of tax for that year of assessment or accounting period which, apart from this section, is or would be contained in an assessment to tax made or to be made on the chargeable person shall be increased by an amount (hereafter in this subsection referred to as the ‘surcharge’) equal to 10 per cent. of that amount of tax and, if the tax contained in the assessment to tax is not the amount of tax as so increased, then all the provisions of the Tax Acts and the Capital Gains Tax Acts (apart from this section) including, in particular, those relating to the collection and recovery of tax and the payment of interest on unpaid tax shall apply as if the tax contained in the assessment to tax were the amount of tax as so increased:”.

(2) Subsection (1) shall apply and have effect as respects the year 1991-92 and any subsequent year of assessment and as respects any accounting period ending on or after the 6th day of April, 1990.

(3) In relation to the year 1990-91 only, subsection (2) (as amended by this section) of section 48 of the Finance Act, 1986 , shall have effect as if the reference to the chargeable person who fails to deliver a return of income before the specified date in relation to the return of income were a reference to a chargeable person who fails to deliver either—

(a) the 1990 Income Tax Return referred to in subsection (4) of section 23 before the specified date in relation to that return, or

(b) the return of income for the year 1990-91 before the specified date in relation to that return.