Finance Act, 1971

Investment allowance for machinery and plant in designated areas.

22.—(1) In this section and in sections 24 and 25 “qualifying machinery or plant” means machinery or plant (other than vehicles suitable for the conveyance by road of persons or goods or the haulage by road of other vehicles) which is provided for use in any designated area and which, at the time it is so provided, is unused and not secondhand;

“designated area” has the same meaning as in the Industrial Development Act, 1969 .

(2) Where a person carrying on a trade or profession incurs, on or after the 1st day of April, 1971, and before the 1st day of April, 1973, capital expenditure on the provision of qualifying machinery or plant for the purposes of the trade or profession, there shall be made to him, for the year of assessment in the basis period for which the expenditure is incurred, an allowance (in this section and in the next three following sections referred to as an investment allowance) equal to one-fifth of the expenditure, and such allowance shall be made as a deduction in charging the profits or gains of the trade or profession.

(3) For the purposes of this section—

(a) the day on which any expenditure is incurred shall be taken to be the day when the sum in question becomes payable,

(b) expenditure shall not be regarded as having been incurred by a person in so far as it has been or is to be met directly or indirectly by the State, by any board established by statute or by any public or local authority,

(c) any expenditure incurred for the purposes of a trade or profession by a person about to carry it on shall be treated as if it had been incurred by that person on the first day on which he does carry it on, and

(d) capital expenditure shall not include any expenditure which is allowed to be deducted in computing, for the purposes of income tax, the profits or gains of a trade or profession carried on by the person incurring the expenditure.

(4) Any claim by a person for an allowance under this section in charging the profits or gains of his trade or profession shall be included in the annual statement required to be delivered under the Income Tax Acts of the profits or gains thereof and shall be accompanied by a certificate signed by the claimant, which shall be deemed to form part of the claim, stating that the expenditure was incurred on the provision of qualifying machinery or plant and giving such particulars as show that the allowance falls to be made.

(5) The definition of “capital allowance” in sections 69 (1) and 218 of the Income Tax Act, 1967 , and section 20 (5) (a) of the Finance Act, 1970 , and the definition of “capital allowances” in sections 314 (2) and 317 (1) of the Income Tax Act, 1967 , are hereby amended by the addition in each case of “or section 22 of the Finance Act, 1971”.