We have another Finance Bill – Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2015. While mainly a technical bill, designed primarily to address EU Banking regulation, we can expect an amendment to the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997. When presenting the bill, the Minister for Finance announced that there will be a new Part introduced which will deal with the Revenue’s treatment of confidential taxpayer information and disclosing such information to the Law Society of Ireland.

The Minister said “this amendment will allow Revenue disclose confidential taxpayer information to the Law Society of Ireland in such circumstances where the tax adviser or agent is a solicitor, ensuring equal treatment across the broad range of tax advisers”.

Section 851A TCA 1997 provides that personal and commercial information revealed to Revenue for tax purposes is protected against unauthorised disclosure. The section allows Revenue to use taxpayer information to report a tax practitioner to a professional body where Revenue is satisfied that the work of that practitioner does not meet the standards of the professional body. Currently the provisions of section 851A TCA 1997 do not cover practitioners who are not members of a professional body or who are members of the Law Society of Ireland.

CCAB-I has long made representations on the disparity of treatment between practitioners who are members of a professional body as defined under section 851A(1) TCA 1997 and practitioners who are not members of a professional body and practitioners who are members of the Law Society (which is not included in the definition of a professional body under section 851A(1) TCA 1997). In the Pre-Budget 2016 submission, CCAB-I sought an end to the bias towards the regulated accountancy profession.