4.—F3[(1) Where in any contribution week a payment is made to or for the benefit of an employed contributor in respect of reckonable earnings of that employed contributor, a levy shall be payable by the employed contributor’s employer at the rate of 1.0 per cent of the amount of the reckonable earnings in that week to which that payment relates.]

(2) Nothing in subsection (1) or any other provision of this Act shall be construed as requiring levy to be paid in relation to a payment of the kind referred to in subsection (1) that is made before the commencement of this Act.

(3) An employer shall not deduct from the reckonable earnings of an employed contributor or recover from such contributor any sum in respect of levy paid or payable under this Act.

F4[(4) Where, but for this subsection, levy would be payable in respect of an employed contributor under this Act, then if no employment contribution is payable during any period of exemption by virtue of a scheme provided for under regulations made pursuant to section 13(9) of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 and known as the Employers’ Pay-Related Social Insurance Exemption Scheme, in respect of that contributor, levy shall not be payable during that period.]

(5) F5[…]

(6) F5[…]

(7) F5[…]

(8) Regulations for the time being in force under section 29A of the Act of 1993 shall apply in relation to levy as they apply in relation to employment contributions.

(9) Levy shall, for the purposes of the collection and recovery of it under section 5, be regarded as an employment contribution.

(10) Section 6(1) of the Act of 1993 is amended by the insertion after “under this Act” of “(other than section 6B)”.

(11) The Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs shall pay out of the Social Insurance Fund to the Minister in the financial year 2000 a sum of £120 million.

(12) Moneys held on the commencement of this Act by Foras Áiseanna Saothair for and on account of the levy imposed pursuant to section 21 of the Industrial Training Act, 1967, shall be paid by it, forthwith after such commencement, into the Fund.

F6[(13) For the purposes of this section—

‘payment’ includes a notional payment;

F7[‘notional payment’ has the meaning assigned to it by section 985A (as inserted by section 6 of the Finance Act 2003) of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997.]

F8[…]]

F9[(14) Where, for a year of assessment (within the meaning of the Tax Acts), the Revenue Commissioners and an employer enter into an agreement under a specified provision of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 whereby the employer will account to the Revenue Commissioners, in accordance with that provision, in respect of the income tax due on qualifying emoluments (within the meaning of that provision) and where that agreement is not null and void, then, in respect of those qualifying emoluments, the employer as part of that agreement, shall make a payment in respect of reckonable earnings equal to 0.7 per cent of the aggregate of the amount of those qualifying reckonable earnings and the amount of income tax payable under the agreement in respect of them.

(15) In subsection (14) ‘specified provision’ means such provision as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Minister for the purposes of that subsection.]