Social Security Act 1975

149 Evidence of non-payment

(1) Subsection (2) below applies with respect to any period during which, under regulations made by virtue of paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 1 to this Act (deduction with P.A.Y.E.), contributions fall to be paid in like manner as income tax.

(2) A certificate of a collector of taxes that any amount by way of contributions which a person is liable to pay to that collector for any period has not been paid—

(a) to him ; or

(b) to the best of his knowledge and belief, to any other person to whom it might lawfully be paid,

shall until the contrary is proved be sufficient evidence in any proceedings before any court that the sum mentioned in the certificate is unpaid and due.

(3) A document purporting to be such a certificate shall be deemed to be such a certificate until the contrary is proved.

(4) A statutory declaration by an officer of the Secretary of State that the searches specified in the declaration for a particular contribution card or for a record of the payment of a particular contribution have been made, and that the card in question or a record of the payment of the contribution in question has not been found, is admissible in any proceedings for an offence as evidence of the facts stated in the declaration.

(5) Nothing in subsection (4) above makes a statutory declaration admissible as evidence in proceedings for an offence except in a case where, and to the extent to which, oral evidence to the like effect would have been admissible in those proceedings.

(6) Nothing in subsections (4) and (5) above makes a statutory declaration admissible as evidence in proceedings for an offence—

(a) unless a copy of it has, not less than 7 days before the hearing or trial, been served on the person charged with the offence in any manner in which a summons or, in Scotland, a citation in a summary prosecution may be served; or

(b) if that person, not later than 3 days before the hearing or trial or within such further time as the court may in special circumstances allow, gives notice to the prosecutor requiring the attendance at the trial of the person by whom the declaration was made.