Contracting authorities, when advertising main contracts, are required to state that it will be a condition for the contract award that all sub-contractors employed on the contract must produce a tax reference number where payments exceed 635 euro.
Records of tax reference numbers must be kept by the contractor and be available for inspection where requested by the Revenue Commissioners.
Where payments exceed 2539 euro in any 12-month period the sub-contractor will be required to produce either a current tax clearance certificate or a current C2 certificate or statement of suitability.
It should be made clear to sub-contractors that payments under a contract are at all times conditional on compliance with these requirements.
Main contractors must ensure that all sub-contractors employed by them comply with these requirements.
Contracting authorities must ensure that contractors have complied with requirements and should, where appropriate, insist on seeing the relevant certificates.
A failure to comply with requirements will affect a contractor’s prospects of obtaining future public contracts.
Tax clearance certificates are normally valid for 12 months.
In the absence of a C2 certificate, the principal contractor must deduct tax at the rate of 35% from payments to sub contractors.
