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

date posted 22nd August 2007 17:25

On 22/08/2007 17:43, Tony Crockford wrote:
>
>
> 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.
>
> ;)
>

They do belong to a club which handles most of the finances, but I get
the feeling they don't want the club involved with that side of things
for this site.

I've suggested the charity idea for the site, they may be willing to do
that, alternatively they can try hide from the tax man ;)

Thanks

Martin