Katherine Zappone (Independent)

I move recommendation No. 3:

In page 16, between lines 22 and 23, to insert the following:

"a reference to a child of a person includes a child in respect of whom the person was at any time before the making of the maintenance arrangement concerned entitled to relief under section 465(1).".

That is a great idea. There are a lot of words and I have received support and advice in putting the recommendations to the Minister. Effectively, the intention behind all three recommendations is to include reference to the children of civil partners with respect to maintenance arrangements for taxation purposes. That is as simply as I can put it. There is no reference to children in the Bill when maintenance arrangements are being defined for taxation purposes.

Recommendation No. 3 is a technical provision which attempts to mirror an equivalent provision for married couples. It provides for certain dependent children to be taken into account where a tax credit is claimed in that regard under section 465 but where they may not be the person's child. For example, they may be acting as a guardian of the child. Effectively, if they were entitled to tax relief for the child prior to the maintenance arrangements for the child then they are still entitled to the relief after maintenance arrangements. That is what the amendment seeks to do.

Recommendations Nos. 4 and 5 again seek to include express reference to payments made in respect of children within the context of maintenance arrangements, and that these give rise to legally enforceable obligations. In recommendation No. 4 specifically the words we propose include reference to payments made to children. The intention of the recommendation is simply to mirror equivalence between how maintenance payments for children of married couples and children of civil partners are treated for taxation purposes. The intention is to mirror the language in the tax code.

On Committee Stage I noted that the Civil Partnership Act does not place an obligation on civil partners to maintain the child or children of their civil partner in the case of a breakdown. Theoretically, that means that a civil partnership may be dissolved in circumstances where a child of either party may be financially disadvantaged as a result. The absence of recognition of rights and responsibilities for children of civil partners was noted as a prime lacuna of the Civil Partnership Act by Senator Bacik in her comments on Committee Stage and also the historical debates on the Civil Partnership Bill itself. I just bring that to the fore again. However, after the breakdown of a civil partnership happens and if there are maintenance arrangements for children that become part of a voluntary commitment on separation or could become part of a legally binding agreement made in court then should that not be enforceable within taxation law? The recommendation seeks to provide for the same taxation treatment for maintenance arrangements for children of civil partners as applies to children of married couples.

Recommendation No. 5 proposes the insertion of a new section in order to mirror the tax treatment of payments for the maintenance of children of civil partners to that of children of married couples. Maintenance payments to children of married couples are disregarded for tax purposes. The intention of the recommendation is to include a provision in taxation legislation that maintenance payments to children of civil partners are also disregarded for taxation purposes. The recommendation is lengthy, mirroring the length of the provisions within the income tax code legislation on this issue. Whatever the rationale was behind those provisions, I am simply proposing that the same rationale be applied in respect of the children of civil partners.