The Charities Act 2006 changed the way in which excepted and exempt charities are regulated. It is the intention of the Charity Commission to ensure that all these charities are registered with the exception of certain charities that have there own ‘principal regulator’.

From 31 January 2009 all excepted charities with an annual income over £100,000 must register with the Charity Commission. The deadline is October 2009. These charities are largely connected with churches and scouts and guides.

Excepted charities with an annual income over £100,000 will not need to register until 2012.

There are however a certain group of churches that are required to register immediately if their annual income exceeds £5,000. These include The Church of the Nazarene, The Free Church of England, Independent Methodists, Wesleyan Reformed Union and Churches of Christ.

For exempt Charities, the majority of these are listed in Schedule 2 to the Charities Act 1993. How these charities will be dealt with will depend upon whether or not they are already governed or will be governed by a principal regulator in the future.

All exempt charities will ultimately be registered. It is likely that those with annual income over £100,000 will need to register first but no date has been set.

Further information is available at www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registration.

Louise Giles is a charities expert and a manager at Mercer & Hole.  If you would like to discuss the contents of this post with Louise you can call her on 01727 869141. 

We will be blogging on SME Plus Blog and Tax Plus Blog on Pre-Budget Report day.  If you do not already subscribe to our blogs click here for SME Plus Blog or here for Tax Plus Blog to ensure you get our comment and analysis as and when it happens. 

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Some financial thresholds on charity accounts have been amended for financial years ending on or after 1 April 2009. 

The main changes are:

• A charity is required to send a copy of its accounts and trustees’ annual report to the Charity Commission if its gross income is more than £25,000 (increased from £10,000), (the Charity Commission is likely to introduce some form of sampling for charities with income between £10,000 and £25,000 so that small charities cannot assume that submission of their documents will never be required).
• External scrutiny of the accounts will only be required where a charity has gross income of more than £25,000 (also increased from £10,000).
• Unincorporated charities with income over £250,000 must prepare accrual accounts (increased from £100,000).
• A full audit is now required where:
  • Gross income is more than £500,000 (unchanged).
  • Gross income is more than £250,000 (increased from £100,000) and total assets are more than £3.26 million (increased from £2.8 million).

Comment on changes to charity thresholds in the space provided below, or visit my profile for details of how to contact me. 

Wendy Brambrick is a General Practice Manager and charities and not-for-profit expert at Mercer & Hole. 

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