Commentary on Sections Other provisions Section 63: Disclosure of information by Inland Revenue
254.Section 63 amends Schedule 5 of the Tax Credits Act 2002 to enable the Inland Revenue to share Tax Credit, Child Benefit or Guardian’s Allowance information (except where it relates to a person’s income) with local authorities (or, in Northern Ireland, Health and Social Services Boards) for the purposes of enquiries and investigations relating to the welfare of a child under the legislation specified in subsection (2).
255.Subsection (3) enables those authorities to pass this information on to other people or bodies (e.g. the police) for the purpose of such enquiries or investigations without the consent of the Inland Revenue. It also enables authorities to pass information from the Revenue to others for the purposes of civil or criminal proceedings or where the Revenue would have had the legal power to do this themselves. However, subsection (4) provides that, in these circumstances, authorities are required to seek permission from the Revenue beforehand.
256.In any other cases, subsection (5) makes it an offence for a staff member of an authority to disclose information provided to him/her under subsection (1) unless the disclosure is made:
	in accordance with an enactment or order of court,
	with the consent of person to whom the information relates, or
	in a way that prevents identification of the person to whom the information relates.
257.This places a criminal sanction against unauthorised disclosure by the authority’s staff, which reflects the existing Inland Revenue criminal sanction against unauthorised disclosure of information by Revenue staff. Subsection (6) provides that a person charged with this offence has the defence that he/she reasonably believed that his/her disclosure was lawful. In practice this means that the onus of proof is on the defendant. If found guilty, subsection (7) would mean that a person is liable to a maximum of two years imprisonment.
258.Section 67(7)(k) provides that section 63  took effect on the day on which the Children Act 2004 received Royal Assent.