Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 85:

In page 264, between lines 32 and 33, to insert the following: “(d) a certificate of tax compliance,”.

I have dealt with a number of businesses in my constituency over the past number of years. One example of such businesses concerns a young man with a young family who set up a construction company and sub-contracted work to a contractor. Over a period of seven or eight years, he allowed the contractor to build up a level of credit, on the understanding the contractor was tax compliant. Half way through the period, the young man invested a considerable amount of money in his business but subsequently found out the contractor was not tax compliant for six or seven years, but was still trading and operating. As a result, the young man's business collapsed because of the level of exposure built up over that period.

It is important that we ensure that companies operating in these areas are tax compliant. This amendment provides that companies making an annual return must provide a certificate of tax compliance as part of the process. This is to ensure that no company can continue to be registered if it is not fully tax compliant. There may be an issue with regard to synching annual returns with tax returns, but it is intended that the tax compliance certificate be available for the most recent year. This would be a positive move and would give confidence to all elements of the supply chain that whoever they are dealing with is not in danger of hammering them or exposing them to risk.

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