521 Accountable persons

Summary

This section sets out the persons who, or bodies which, are accountable persons and who, or which, deduct tax from payments made by them in respect of professional services. Included are Government Departments, local authorities, the Health Service Executive, etc. The list of accountable persons may be added to or restricted, as necessary, by way of Regulations. Such Regulations have to be approved, in advance, by the Dáil.

Details

Accountable person

(1) “accountable person” is a person or body listed in Schedule 13.

Subsidiaries and Joint Ventures

(2) Where any of the accountable persons listed in Schedule 13 is a body corporate, any subsidiary of that body corporate which is resident in the State is also an accountable person and is, therefore, obliged to operate the scheme of withholding tax when making payments for professional services rendered to it.

Where one or more accountable persons control the composition of the board, hold more than half of the nominal value of the share capital or hold more than half the voting rights, then that body will also be an accountable person. The principal type of structure which this is intended to encompass is 50/50 joint ventures between two accountable persons.

Regulations

(3) The Minister for Finance may extend or restrict the meaning of “accountable person” by Regulation by adding further persons to the list or deleting persons from it.

(4) A draft of such a Regulation must be laid before Dáil Éireann and the actual Regulation cannot be made until a resolution to approve the draft has been passed by the Dáil.

Relevant Date: Finance Act 2021