Re: FN-FORUM: Accepting donations on a website - legal/tax question

date posted 22nd August 2007 17:12


On 22 Aug 2007, at 17:28, Martin Wheatley wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> One of my clients has just asked me what they should be doing for
> accepting donations for access to a website, the donations are
> there to keep the site running, and any excess will be used to part
> pay for nights out/events. They want to know what they need to do
> from a legal/taxman point of view. They are not a company just a
> group of friends (a rugby team to be precise) so there's no
> accounting or anything available to run this through.
>
> The donations will be via a paypal button on the website.
>
> Anyone set-up or advised on this sort of thing before?
>

The should have a club constitution and a committee structure that
handles finances, can't believe they don't.

Every club that takes money from it's members should do that, appoint
a treasurer, and open a bank account (clubs and societies) into which
to pay the money.

annual accounts should be reported to the membership at the AGM.

if they don't do this, someone will be personally liable for the
income and expenses of the money they handle.

Actually it might be worse:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ctsa/small-tax-liabilities.htm
or maybe they could become a charity:
http://www.sportni.net/Publications/Tax%20_Booklet.pdf

IANAL, but I would advise them to form a committee, write a
constitution and open a bank account. All painfully boring, but much
better done properly now than face members questions about where the
money went two years down the line....

then they should speak to an accountant or a solicitor for some
proper professional advice.

;)