(1)Any provision made by or under any enactment which requires a person, in connection with any assigned matter,—
(a)to produce, furnish or deliver any document, or cause any document to be produced, furnished or delivered, or
(b)to permit the Commissioners of Customs and Excise (in this section referred to as “the Commissioners”) or a person authorised by them—
(i)to inspect any document, or
(ii)to make or take extracts from or copies of or remove any document,
shall have effect as if any reference in that provision to a document were a reference to a document within the meaning of Part I of the M1Civil Evidence Act 1968; and, accordingly, any reference in such a provision to a copy of a document shall be construed in accordance with section 10(2) of that Act.
(2)In connection with any assigned matter, a person authorised by the Commissioners to exercise the powers conferred by this subsection—
(a)shall be entitled at any reasonable time to have access to, and inspect and check the operation of, any computer and any associated apparatus or material which is or has been in use in connection with any document to which this subsection applies; and
(b)may require—
(i)the person by whom or on whose behalf the computer is or has been so used, or
(ii)any person having charge of, or otherwise concerned with the operation of, the computer, apparatus or material,
to afford him such reasonable assistance as he may require for the purposes of paragraph (a) above.
(3)Subsection (2) above applies to any document, within the meaning of Part I of the M2Civil Evidence Act 1968, which, in connection with any assigned matter, a person is or may be required by or under any enactment—
(a)to produce, furnish or deliver, or cause to be produced, furnished or delivered; or
(b)to permit the Commissioners or a person authorised by them to inspect, make or take extracts from or copies of or remove.
(4)Any person who—
(a)obstructs a person authorised under subsection (2) above in the exercise of his powers under paragraph (a) of that subsection, or
(b)without reasonable excuse fails to comply within a reasonable time with a requirement under paragraph (b) of that subsection,
shall be liable on summary conviction to a penalty of level 4 on the standard scale (as defined in section 75 of the M3Criminal Justice Act 1982).
(5)In each of the enactments mentioned in subsection (6) below (which create offences in relation, among other matters, to false documents) “document” shall have the same meaning as in Part I of the Civil Evidence Act 1968.
(6)The enactments referred to in subsection (5) above are—
(a)paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 1 to the M4Miscellaneous Transferred Excise Duties Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 (false statements and documents in connection with pool betting duty);
(b)paragraph 8(1) of Schedule 2 to that Act (false statements and documents in connection with general betting duty);
(c)section 167 of the M5Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 (untrue declarations etc.);
(d)section 168 of that Act (counterfeit documents etc.);
(e)section 15 of the M6Customs and Excise Duties (General Reliefs) Act 1979 (false statements and documents in connection with reliefs);
(f)paragraph 13(3) of Schedule 1 to the M7Betting and Gaming Duties Act 1981 (false statements and documents in connection with betting duty);
(g)paragraph 7(3) of Schedule 2 to that Act (false statements and documents in connection with gaming licence duty);
(h)paragraph 8(2) of Schedule 1 to the M8Car Tax Act 1983 (false documents etc.).
(7)In the application of this section to Scotland and Northern Ireland, references in this section to Part I of the M9Civil Evidence Act 1968 and section 10(2) of that Act shall be construed—
(a)in the case of Scotland, as references to Part III of the M10Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1968 and section 17(4) of that Act respectively, and
(b)in the case of Northern Ireland, as references to Part I of the M11Civil Evidence Act (Northern Ireland) 1971 and section 6(2) of that Act respectively.
(8)In this section “assigned matter” means any matter which is an assigned matter for the purposes of the M12Customs and Excise Management Act 1979.