Finance Act 2003

100 Companies

(1) In this Part “company”, except as otherwise expressly provided, means any body corporate or unincorporated association, but does not include a partnership.

(2) Everything to be done by a company under this Part shall be done by the company acting through—

(a) the proper officer of the company, or

(b) another person having for the time being having the express, implied or apparent authority of the company to act on its behalf for the purpose.

Paragraph (b) does not apply where a liquidator has been appointed for the company.

(3) Service on a company of any document under or in pursuance of this Part may be effected by serving it on the proper officer.

(4) Tax due from a company that—

(a) is not a body corporate, or

(b) is incorporated under the law of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom,

may, without prejudice to any other method of recovery, be recovered from the proper officer of the company.

(5) The proper officer may retain out of any money coming into his hands on behalf of the company sufficient sums to pay that tax and, so far as he is not so reimbursed, he is entitled to be indemnified by the company in respect of the liability imposed on him.

(6) For the purposes of this Part—

(a) the proper officer of a body corporate is the secretary, or person acting as secretary, of the company, and

(b) the proper officer of an unincorporated association, or of a body corporate that does not have a proper officer within paragraph (a), is the treasurer, or person acting as treasurer, of the company.

This subsection does not apply if a liquidator or administrator has been appointed for the company.

(7) If a liquidator or administrator has been appointed for the company, then, for the purposes of this Part—

(a) the liquidator or, as the case may be, the administrator is the proper officer, and

(b) if two or more persons are appointed to act jointly or concurrently as the administrator of the company, the proper officer is—

(i) such one of them as is specified in a notice given to the Inland Revenue by those persons for the purposes of this section, or

(ii) where the Inland Revenue is not so notified, such one or more of those persons as the Inland Revenue may designate as the proper officer for those purposes.