Stories

ACNC invalidates the status of 392 charities

Sarah Harding January 20, 2015

2 min read

The group of 392 charities were amongst around 56,000 charities transferred to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in December 2012. Of these 392, 72 were Victoiran based.

ACNC Commissioner, Susan Pascoe AM said the group of charities had not been in contact with the ACNC or responded to multiple letters and calls since the federal charity regulator’s establishment.

“We believe these charities are no longer in operation, hence we are revoking their charity status,” says Pascoe.

“The ACNC is committed to providing the Australian public with a Charity Register that is credible, accurate, and up to date, and this exercise is a key part of that process.

“In 2013 we began to contact each registered charity to confirm their existence and their contact information. Since the commencement of that project, we have been able to locate over 4,000 charities for which we did not hold accurate records.”

Charities that have their status revoked but are still operating will have their application to re-register with the ACNC fast-tracked once they have lodged any overdue reports.

Ms Pascoe foreshadowed further revocations for charities that have not met their legislative obligations with the ACNC.

“In the coming months, the ACNC will publish a notice of intention to revoke the charity status of hundreds of charities that have not lodged both their 2013 and 2014 Annual Information Statements,” says Pascoe.

“Charities are required to lodge an Annual Information Statement (AIS) each year, and charities that do not lodge for two consecutive years face losing their charity status.

“This will be the first group of charities to have their registration with the ACNC revoked for not lodging their AIS.

“We expect most charities who do not file their 2013 and 2014 AIS are no longer operating, so removing them from the Charity Register will be part of our exercise in cleaning up old data we inherited from the ATO. However, there will also be some charities which, for a variety of reasons, do exist but failed to comply with their reporting obligations.

“The easiest way to ensure a charity is not at risk of having its charity status revoked is to lodge all outstanding AIS.”