445Regulations: further provisions on deductions

1. Regulations for the purposes of section 444(2)(g) may (without limitation) do all or any of the following:

2. require a debtor’s payer to deduct the amount due (as a lump sum, or by instalments) from a sum that is or becomes payable by the payer to the debtor:
3. require the payer to pay to MSD by a time, or by any times, specified in the notice, the amount or amounts deducted:
4. provide for the contents, copies, and revocation of a deduction notice:
5. require the payer, if requested, to issue to the debtor a deductions statement:
6. provide that the debtor is, so far as amounts are deducted, discharged from debt:
7. provide, if the payer to whom the deduction notice is issued is a bank (as defined in the regulations), any money held by the bank to the credit of the debtor is deemed to be held in trust for the Crown, and recoverable from the bank as if it were money payable under a benefit to which the debtor was not entitled:
8. provide that neither the debtor, nor any other person concerned, has a claim against the payer making the deduction, or the Crown, in respect of the deduction:
9. provide any amounts deducted must be held in trust for the Crown, and are debts due to the Crown, and subject to recovery from the payer who makes the deductions, as if the amounts were money payable under a benefit to which the payer who made the deduction was not entitled:
10. provide for offences, punishable on conviction by a fine not exceeding $2,000, for any person—
    1. failing to make any deduction required by a deduction notice; or
    2. failing, after making a deduction, to pay the amount deducted to MSD within the time specified in the notice; or
    3. permitting payment to or on behalf of any person, other than MSD, of any amount held in trust for the Crown under the regulations:
11. provide for protected earnings, if a deduction notice is issued to an employer of a debtor, by prohibiting the employer, in making deductions under the deduction notice, from reducing the amount paid to the debtor by way of salary or wages in respect of any week to an amount that is less than a proportion (prescribed by the regulations) of the amount calculated as being the debtor’s net ordinary weekly pay for a week (as that term is defined by the regulations):
12. provide for variation or discharge of a deduction notice:
13. provide that a payer to whom a deduction notice has been issued is liable to pay MSD a late deduction penalty, calculated in a manner prescribed by the regulations (but not exceeding 2% of the amount in default), if the payer fails wholly or in part to—
    1. make a deduction required to be made by the notice; or
    2. pay an amount deducted under the notice to MSD by the time specified in the notice:
14. provide for MSD to remit all or part of a penalty of that kind payable, and provide that a penalty of that kind payable to MSD is a debt due to the Crown, and subject to recovery from the payer, as if the penalty were money payable under a benefit to which the payer was not entitled.

15. Regulations under this section are secondary legislation (see Part 3 of the Legislation Act 2019 for publication requirements).

Compare

• 1964 No 136 ss 3(1), 86A–86I

Notes

• Section 445(2): inserted, on 28 October 2021, by section 3 of the Secondary Legislation Act 2021 (2021 No 7).