Finance Act 2004
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Exemption in respect of certain benefits-in-kind. |
8.—(1) Part 5 of the Principal Act is amended— | |
(a) in section 116— | ||
(i) by inserting the following after the definition of “business premises”: | ||
“‘business use’, in relation to the use of an asset by a person, means the use of that asset by the person in the performance of the duties of the person's office or employment;”, | ||
and | ||
(ii) by inserting the following after the definition of “employment”: | ||
“‘private use’, in relation to an asset, means use of the asset other than business use.”, | ||
(b) in section 118 by substituting the following for subsection (5A) (inserted by the Finance Act 1999 ): | ||
“(5A) (a) Subsection (1) shall not apply to expense incurred by the body corporate in or in connection with the provision for a director or employee of a monthly or annual bus or railway pass issued by or on behalf of one or more approved transport providers for travel on either or both bus and railway. | ||
(b) In this subsection— | ||
‘approved transport provider’ means— | ||
(a) Coras Iompair Éireann or any of its subsidiaries, | ||
(b) a holder of a passenger licence granted under section 7 of the Road Transport Act 1932 , | ||
(c) a person who provides a passenger transport service under an arrangement entered into with Coras Iompair Éireann in accordance with section 13 (1) of the Transport Act 1950 , | ||
(d) the Railway Procurement Agency or any of its subsidiaries, or | ||
(e) a person who has entered into an arrangement with the Railway Procurement Agency, in accordance with section 43 (6) of the Transport (Railway Infrastructure) Act 2001 to operate a railway; | ||
‘railway pass’ includes a pass issued by a railway designated as a light railway or as a metro in a railway order issued under section 43 of the Transport (Railway Infrastructure) Act 2001 . | ||
(5B) (a) Subsection (1) shall not apply to expense incurred by the body corporate in or in connection with the provision, without any transfer of the property in it, for a director or employee of a mobile telephone for business use where private use of the mobile telephone is incidental. | ||
(b) The mobile telephones to which the exemption provided by this subsection applies include any mobile telephone provided in connection with a car or van notwithstanding that the vehicle is made available as referred to in section 121 or 121A, as the case may be. | ||
(c) In this subsection ‘mobile telephone’ means telephone apparatus which— | ||
(i) is not physically connected to a land-line, and | ||
(ii) is not a cordless telephone. | ||
(d) For the purposes of paragraph (c)— | ||
‘cordless telephone’ means telephone apparatus designed or adapted to provide a wireless extension to a telephone, and used only as such an extension to a telephone that is physically connected to a land-line; | ||
‘telephone apparatus’ means wireless telegraphy apparatus designed or adapted for the purposes of transmitting and receiving either or both spoken messages and information (being information for the same purposes as the Electronic Commerce Act 2000 ) and connected to a public telecommunications network (as defined in the European Communities (Telecommunications Services) Regulations 1992 ( S.I. No. 45 of 1992 )). | ||
(5C) (a) Subsection (1) shall not apply to expense incurred by the body corporate in or in connection with the provision for a director or employee of a high-speed internet connection to the director's or employee's home for business use where private use of the connection is incidental. | ||
(b) In this subsection ‘high-speed internet connection’ means a connection capable of transmitting information (being information for the same purposes as the Electronic Commerce Act 2000 ) at a rate equal to or greater than 250 kilobits per second. | ||
(5D) (a) Subsection (1) shall not apply to expense incurred by the body corporate in or in connection with the provision, without any transfer of the property in it, for a director or employee of computer equipment for business use where private use of the computer equipment is incidental. | ||
(b) In this section ‘computer equipment’, in addition to a computer, includes— | ||
(i) a facsimile machine, and | ||
(ii) printers, scanners, modems, discs, disc drives, and other peripheral devices designed to be used by being connected to or inserted in a computer and computer software to be used in such equipment. | ||
(5E) (a) Subsection (1) shall not apply to expense incurred by the body corporate, or incurred by a director or employee and reimbursed by the body corporate, in or in connection with the payment on behalf of a director or employee of the annual membership fees of a professional body where membership of that body by the director or employee is relevant to the business of the body corporate. | ||
(b) Membership of a professional body by a director or employee of a body corporate may be regarded as relevant to the business of that body corporate where— | ||
(i) it is necessary for the performance of the duties of the office or employment of the director or employee, or | ||
(ii) it facilitates the acquisition of knowledge which— | ||
(I) is necessary for or directly related to the performance of the duties of the office or employment of the director or employee, or | ||
(II) would be necessary for or directly related to the performance of prospective duties of the office or employment of the director or employee with that body corporate. | ||
(5F) Subsection (1) shall not apply to expense incurred by the body corporate in or in connection with the provision, without any transfer of the property in it, for a director or employee of a mechanically propelled road vehicle which is— | ||
(a) designed or constructed solely or mainly for the carriage of goods or other burden, and | ||
(b) of a type not commonly used as a private vehicle and unsuitable to be so used.”, | ||
and | ||
(c) in section 121A (inserted by the Finance Act 2003 )— | ||
(i) in subsection (1)— | ||
(I) by inserting the following before the definition of “van”: | ||
“‘gross vehicle weight’, in relation to a vehicle, means the weight which the vehicle is designed or adapted not to exceed when in normal use and travelling on the road laden.”, | ||
and | ||
(II) in the definition of “van”— | ||
(A) by deleting “and” in paragraph (b), | ||
(B) by substituting “areas, and” for “areas.”, in paragraph (c), and | ||
(C) by inserting the following after paragraph (c): | ||
“(d) has a gross vehicle weight not exceeding 3,500 kilograms.”, | ||
and | ||
(ii) by inserting the following after subsection (2): | ||
“(2A) Subsection (2) shall not apply for a year of assessment in respect of the private use of a van made available to a person (in this subsection referred to as the ‘employee’) as set out in that subsection where the following conditions are met— | ||
(a) the van made available to the employee is necessary for the performance of the duties of the employee's employment, | ||
(b) the employee is required by the person who made the van available to keep it, when not in use in the performance of the duties of the employee's employment, at or in the vicinity of the employee's private residence, | ||
(c) apart from travel between the employee's private residence and workplace, other private use of the van is prohibited by the person making the van available and there is no such other private use, and | ||
(d) in the performance of the duties of his or her employment, the employee spends at least 80 per cent of his or her time engaged on such duties away from the premises of the employer to which the employee is attached.”. | ||
(2) This section is deemed to have come into force and taken effect as on and from 1 January 2004. |