Annual Return 2006 - What do charities need to submit to the Charity Commission for their financial year ending in 2006?

Contents

• What do trustees need to submit to the Commission for their financial year ending in 2006?
• What about the charity's accounts?
• When do trustees need to submit their documents?
• Where to go for more help
• Frequently asked questions

What do trustees need to submit to the Commission for their financial year ending 2006?

The Annual Return 2006 is made up of three parts and which parts charities must complete will be dependent upon their income in the previous financial year (2004-2005). Smaller charities will have received an Annual Information Update, while larger charities were initially invited to complete their Annual Return form online.

For example,

Charities with an income of £10,000 or below in their previous financial year will have received an Annual Information Update, which included information forming part of the charity's entry on the Register, including trustee details. Although not legally obliged to complete an Annual Return, small charities were asked to complete the Annual Information Update as a good way of meeting their obligation to update their Register details.

Charities with an income between £10,001 and £250,000 are legally required to complete an Annual Return requesting essential information required to update the charity’s details. Charities with an income in the previous year above £100,000 were invited to submit their details online with an option to request a paper version of the form if preferred.

Charities with an income exceeding £250,000 but less than or equal to £1,000,000 must complete an Annual Return comprising both essential information and a series of regulatory questions which are used to monitor charities' activities. These charities will have received an invitation to complete this return online with an option to request a paper version of the form if preferred.

Charities with an income exceeding £1,000,000 in the financial period ending in 2005 are legally required to complete the same form as above in addition to the Summary Information Return, (SIR) introduced for the first time in this cycle. We invited larger charities to complete these forms online with an option to request a paper version of the form if preferred.

Annual Return 2006 – Summary of Submission Requirements

Previous Years income (financial period ending in 2005)	Basic Register information	Basic information + activity based questions	Basic information + activity based questions + SIR
Up to and including £10K
£>10K - £250K
£>250K- £1M
>£1M
Charities which have never completed an Annual Return
Charities which did not complete Annual Return 2005

What about the charity's accounts?

Charities with either an income or expenditure over £10,000 for the year for which they are completing the form(s) must send in their Trustees’ Annual Report and accounts to the Commission. The accounts should also contain any necessary auditor's or independent examiner's reports.

Charities with an income and expenditure of £10,000 or less are not required to send copies of accounts to the Commission. However, they must prepare accounts and make them available upon request.

Further information on accounting requirements can be found on our Charity Accounts Assist Page

When do trustees need to submit their documents?

Annual Returns, SIR’s, Trustees’ Annual Report and accounts must be completed and returned to us within 10 months of the end of the charity's financial year. Whilst this is a statutory deadline, we encourage charities to file their documents with us before then as part of our File Early Campaign.

Charities completing an Annual Update are encouraged to send their Annual Update form to us as early as possible.

Where to go for more help?

For help and advice on completing the Annual Information Update, Annual Return or Summary Information Return, please call Charity Commission Direct on 0845 300 0218. Advisors are available to answer your queries between 8am and 8pm, Monday to Friday and 9pm to 1pm on Saturdays (excluding national holidays). We also have a Textphone/Minicom service on 0845 300 0219 for hearing or speech impaired callers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here you will find the answers to some other frequently asked questions.