195A Exemption in respect of certain expense payments.

(1) In this section—

“body” means an unincorporated body of persons or a body corporate, being—

(a) any board, council or committee, however expressed, or

(b) any body of persons exercising some or all of the functions of such a board, council or committee,

where the duties, other than incidental duties such as attendance at conventions or meetings as delegates on behalf of the body, of the office of members of the body are discharged in the course of meetings of the body concerned, or preparation for such meetings;

“civil servant” has the meaning assigned to it by section 1(1) of the Civil Service Regulation Act 1956;

“member”, in relation to a body, means a person holding office as a member of that body—

(a) who has no other duties directly or indirectly, whether as an employee of the body or of a person connected with that body, in relation to that body, and

(b) whose annualised amount of the emoluments from the office for the year of assessment 2006 and for each subsequent year in which the person is a member of the body, other than payments to which this section applies, does not exceed—

(i) in the case of a member who is the chairperson of the body, not being a body referred to in paragraph (b) of the definition of “body”, €24,000, and

(ii) in any other case, €14,000;

“non-commercial body” means a body—

(a) organised solely for purposes other than profit, where the declared purposes of the body can be ascertained from documents of record,

(b) which, in fact, operates solely for purposes other than profit and, for this purpose, any activity generating income carried on by the body—

(i) which is carried on for the purposes of assisting the body to achieve its purposes, and

(ii) the income of which is used for those purposes,

shall be regarded as operating for purposes other than profit, and

(c) any benefit, or part of the income or accumulated income, of which, cannot be paid to, or cannot otherwise be made available to, any officer, employee or member of the body for the personal benefit of that person or a person connected with that person other than—

(i) any wages, salaries, fees or honorariums for services rendered to the body but only if the amounts paid are no more than reasonable amounts that would be paid in a transaction at arm’s length for similar services by a body organised solely for purposes other than profit, being a body operating in accordance with paragraph (b),

(ii) any payment to which this section applies,

(iii) any payment made to officers, employees or members to assist in the covering of expenses to attend conventions or meetings as delegates on behalf of the body where such attendance is to further the purposes of the body, and

(iv) where the officer, employee or member concerned, or a person connected with such officer, employee or member, is also an object of the purposes of the body, a benefit which is in furtherance of the purposes of the body.

(2) This section applies to payments made by a non-commercial body to or on behalf of a member of the body in respect of expenses of travel and subsistence incurred by the member in the attendance by him or her at meetings of the body.

(3) So much of any payments to which this section applies, as does not exceed the upper of any relevant rate or rates laid down from time to time by the Minister for Finance in relation to the payment of expenses of travel and subsistence of a civil servant, shall be disregarded for all the purposes of the Income Tax Acts.