Report to the Committee on Members' Interests of Seanad Éireann

Background

The provisions of section 21 of the 2001 Act, which require the furnishing of evidence of compliance with tax obligations, commenced on 10 December 2001 and applied, for the first time, to Senators who were elected at the Seanad general election of July 2002. The requirement on members to provide evidence of such compliance arises only once following election.

In early 2002 the Collector-General introduced procedures and documentation to deal with requests from Senators for a Tax Clearance Certificate / Application Statement for the purposes of section 21(1)(a) of the 2001 Act. A copy of the relevant application form is at Appendix 2.

The 2001 Act, at section 21(1)(a), requires that the Tax Clearance Certificate, or Application Statement, which should have issued to Senators, following application, by the Collector-General within the 9 month period either side of the date of election, would be furnished to the Standards Commission within 9 months following the date of election. Any Senator who did not comply with this provision would be deemed to have contravened the 2001 Act.

To accommodate the provisions of section 21(1)(b) of the 2001 Act, the Standards Commission devised a Statutory Declaration format which would be made and witnessed within a one month period either side of the date of election. As with the Tax Clearance Certificate / Application Statement, the Statutory Declaration should reach the Standards Commission within 9 months following the date of election. A sample copy of a Statutory Declaration is at Appendix 3.

The Tax Clearance Certificate, the Application Statement and the Statutory Declaration are regarded as documents of equal stature by section 21 of the 2001 Act. It is important to note that, in making a Statutory Declaration, a Senator is making a personal declaration that his or her tax affairs are in order. The matter of the issue, or non-issue, of a Tax Clearance Certificate or an Application Statement, is determined on the basis of the information available to the Collector-General.

An Application Statement would be issued where the Collector-General had not decided whether to issue, or to refuse to issue, a Tax Clearance Certificate, or where the Collector General had refused to issue a Tax Clearance Certificate and the refusal was the subject of an appeal, or further appeal, that had not yet been determined.

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