Finance Act 1989

146 Entry with warrant to obtain documents. U.K.

(1) Section 20C of the M1 Taxes Management Act 1970 (entrywith warrant to obtain documents) shall be amended as follows.

(2) In subsection (1)—

(a) for the words “any form of fraud” there shall be substituted thewords “serious fraud”, and

(b) for the words “has been” there shall be substituted the words “isbeing, has been or is about to be”.

(3) After that subsection there shall be inserted—

“(1A) Without prejudice to the generality of the concept of serious fraud—

(a) any offence which involves fraud is for the purposes of this section anoffence involving serious fraud if its commission had led, or is intended orlikely to lead, either to substantial financial gain to any person or toserious prejudice to the proper assessment or collection of tax; and

(b) an offence which, if considered alone, would not be regarded as involvingserious fraud may nevertheless be so regarded if there is reasonable groundfor suspecting that it forms part of a course of conduct which is, or but forits detection would be, likely to result in serious prejudice to the properassessment or collection of tax.

(1B) The powers conferred by a warrant under this section shall not beexercisable—

(a) by more than such number of officers of the Board as may be specified inthe warrant;

(b) outside such times of day as may be so specified;

(c) if the warrant so provides, otherwise than in the presence of a constablein uniform.”

(4) For subsections (3) to (5) there shall be substituted—

“(3) An officer who enters the premises under the authority of a warrant underthis section may—

(a) take with him such other persons as appear to him to be necessary;

(b) seize and remove any things whatsoever found there which he has reasonablecause to believe may be required as evidence for the purposes of proceedingsin respect of such an offence as is mentioned in subsection (1) above; and

(c) search or cause to be searched any person found on the premises whom hehas reasonable cause to believe to be in possession of any such things;

but no person shall be searched except by a person of the same sex.

(4) Nothing in subsection (3) above authorises the seizure and removal ofdocuments in the possession of a barrister, advocate or solicitor with respectto which a claim to professional privilege could be maintained.

(5) An officer of the Board seeking to exercise the powers conferred by awarrant under this section or, if there is more than one such officer, thatone of them who is in charge of the search—

(a) if the occupier of the premises concerned is present at the time thesearch is to begin, shall supply a copy of the warrant endorsed with his nameto the occupier;

(b) if at that time the occupier is not present but a person who appears tothe officer to be in charge of the premises is present, shall supply such acopy to that person; and

(c) if neither paragraph (a) nor paragraph (b) above applies, shall leave sucha copy in a prominent place on the premises.

(6) Where entry to premises has been made with a warrant under this section,and the officer making the entry has seized any things under the authority ofthe warrant, he shall endorse on or attach to the warrant a list of the thingsseized.

(7) Subsections (10) to (12) of section 16 of the Policeand Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (return, retention and inspection of warrants)apply to a warrant under this section (together with any list endorsed on orattached to it under subsection (6) above) as they apply to a warrant issuedto a constable under any enactment.

(8) Subsection (7) above extends to England and Wales only.”

(5) This section shall apply with respect to warrants issued on or after theday on which this Act is passed.

Marginal Citations

M1 1970 c. 9.