Finance (Local Property Tax) Act 2012 section 45

Evidence of failure to deliver a return

Section 45 deals with the use of Revenue officer certificates as evidence that a liable person has failed to deliver a local property tax return by the due date.

• A certificate signed by a Revenue officer, based on an examination of relevant records, serves as evidence that a named person is a liable person and that they failed to file their local property tax return by the return date.
• This certificate is treated as proof of non-filing unless the named person can demonstrate otherwise — that is, it is presumed correct until the contrary is proved.
• The certificate can be presented as evidence in proceedings without the need to separately prove the authenticity of the Revenue officer's signature.
• The signature on the certificate is presumed to be genuine unless the contrary is proved, meaning Revenue does not need to call the signing officer as a witness to verify it.