Section 61: Disclosure of tax information etc.
This section substitutes a new Article 83 of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005. It allows Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to disclose information on specified matters to the Pensions Regulator to enable the Regulator to discharge its functions (subsection (2)). The section allows Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to share any information it holds in relation to tax or duty (including income tax), national insurance contributions or the national minimum wage (subsection (1)).
Section 61 also places controls on the Regulator's ability to disclose this information. Any information the Regulator receives from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs under this section must be treated as restricted information (subsection (3)), and can only be disclosed if one of the following exceptions applies:
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has authorised the disclosure (or the disclosure is back to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs);
it is needed for criminal proceedings;
it is needed for civil proceedings started by the Regulator;
it is needed for the Regulator to carry out its functions; or
the data has been anonymised.
Information received by the Regulator from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs under this section is specifically excluded from some of the grounds on which the Regulator can normally disclose information it holds. These are set out in Articles 77, 78 and 80-82 of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005. This includes, for example, disclosure with the consent of the person to whom the information relates, or where necessary to help other specified regulatory bodies exercise their functions.