This section provides that "prescribed" means prescribed by the Revenue Commissioners and requires that, when prescribing forms, the Revenue Commissioners have regard to securing, so far as possible, that no individual is required to make more than one return annually. An individual served with a notice by an inspector in relation to any year of assessment must, within the time limited by the notice, prepare and deliver to the inspector a return in the prescribed form stating: (a) all sources of the individual’s income for that year; (b) the amount of income from each source computed under subsection (3); and (c) any information, accounts, statements and further particulars for income tax required by the notice or indicated by the prescribed form.

Amounts of income are to be computed in accordance with the Income Tax Acts, but where, under Chapter 3 of Part 4, the profits or gains (or, for the year of assessment 2001, 74 per cent of the profits or gains) of a particular 12 month period are to be taken as the profits or gains of a year of assessment, the computation is to be made by reference to that period. A person who delivers to any inspector a return in a prescribed form is deemed to have been required by a notice under this section to prepare and deliver that return.