Archive before April 2022
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Key dates during 2018
Key dates during 2018
Month To Do
January 02.01.2018 - drink coffee, organise desk
19.01.2018 – file Annual VAT 3 Return and Return of Trading details
28.01.2018 – Global International Data Protection Day
February 01.02.2018 – CAO applications deadline
08.02.2018 – Commencment of Companies (Accounting) Act 2017
March 17.03.2018 – St. Patrick’s Day wear Shamrock & large green hat
21.03.2018 - Local Property Tax deadline (if paying full amount in one go)
Quarterly Board Meeting – issue Agenda and Board Pack
April 01.04.2018 – Easter Day
02.04.2018 – Easter Monday recover from too much chocolate
April – introduction of sugar tax, such timing!
Audit – do not forget to ensure someone has engaged Auditors
May 07.05.2018 – May Day
25.05.2018 – General Data Protection Regulations goes live
June 04.06.2018 – Bank Holiday
Quarterly Board Meeting – issue Agenda and Board Pack
July July – Possible publication of Five Year Pension Reform Plan
August 06.08.2018 – Bank Holiday
Last chance - go on holidays!
September 23.09.2018 - Corporation Tax Return deadline for filing CT Return
30.09.2018 – Annual Return Date for bulk of companies
Quarterly Board Meeting – issue Agenda and Board Pack
October 28.10.2018 – Annual Return deadline for electronic filing
29.10.2018 – Bank Holiday
October 2018 – Budget Announced
November Pension – consider topping up personal pension
December Quarterly Board Meeting – issue Agenda and Board Pack
25th December 2018 – do not forget to put Turkey in the oven
Happy Christmas - donation to the Kevin Bell Trust
KomSec Limited will be closed from 24.12.2018 to 02.01.2019 inclusive.
Everyone in KomSec Limited wishes you all a very Happy Christmas, and hope you have a contented time with your family and friends.
Our families seem even more important at Christmas. Sadly though people die regardless of the season. When that death happens overseas it adds an unexpected burden of logistics, costs, and bureaucracy to an incredibly emotional time.
This year KomSec Limited has made a contribution to the extraordinary Kevin Bell Trust which helps alleviate the financial burden of repatriating a family loved one.
Learning Portal for Charity Trustees
The Charities Regulatory Authority has introduced a “Trustee Learning Portal” to provide training to help Trustees understand their legal obligations.
The first course “Guidance for Trustees” is online and takes approximately 40 mins to complete. The content covers the material from their guidance booklet of the same name. Try it for yourself, https://trusteelearning.ie/.
Despite the limitations of online learning, there are numerous advantages; the course is free, convenient, flexible and delivers quality information to a large cohort of Trustees in Ireland fully online.
We can look forward to the introduction of additional courses over the coming months to support Trustees in getting to grips with governance requirements in the Charity Sector.
Charity Corporate Health Check
Charity Corporate Health Check
We are closing off Ireland’s “Trustees Week” with a Corporate Health Check specifically prepared for Charities. These questions can be used as an indicative test of Corporate Governance for your Charity.
You may not know the answers to all the questions, so check with your Company Secretary, Statutory Auditors, Accountant and other professional advisors who will be happy to help.
1. Charities Regulator’s Register of Charities – is your charity registered with the Regulator
2. Registered Office – is your charity’s registered office is correctly noted in the Companies Registration Office
3. Charity Trustee/Director – are you recorded as a Director / Trustee with the Companies Registration Office and the Charity Regulatory Authority.
4. Books and Records – are your Charity’s Statutory Registers, Board, board sub-committee and general meeting records held at the registered office.
5. Accounting Records – is the Charity using a “competent and reliable person” such as an independent accountant to maintain accounting records? The charity should be able to measure its financial position with reasonable accuracy at any time.
6. Board Meetings – is the Charity maintaining Board minutes? Minutes must contain names of those present, in attendance, meeting proceedings and note any resolutions passed. The Minutes must also be signed by the Chair.
7. Annual General Meetings – members must be issued with a notice of a general meeting and provided with a copy of the financial statements prior to an AGM.
8. Companies Registration Office Annual Return – are they being filed on time? If your Charity is a limited company, it will have an Annual Return Date and is obliged to submit an Annual Return within 28 days of this date to the Companies Registration Office.
9. Charity Regulatory Annual Report– all charities (regardless of size) must submit an Annual Report to the Charities Regulatory, within 10 months after the end of each financial year and depending on the size, should also include the financial accounts.
10. Financial Benefits of being a Charity Trustee – as a Charity Trustee, by law you may not profit from carrying out your duty as a trustee. You cannot accept a salary specifically for acting as a charity trustee nor receive another benefit (with the exception of being reimbursed for reasonable expenses carrying out your duties).
CRO Christmas Deadlines
CRO CHRISTMAS DEADLINES
December is often a frantic month as everyone juggles Christmas presents and clearing their office desks.
KomSec cannot help with the Christmas presents but, we can help you clear any outstanding filing requirements you may have before Christmas. Just remember, the CRO will not guarantee processing any submissions received after the following dates.
- Company Incorporations 11th December
- Change of Name 11th December
- Reservation of Company Name 19th December
Trustees’ Week: 13-17 November 2017
Trustees’ Week: 13-17 November 2017
What is Trustees’ Week?
This week is Ireland’s first Trustees’ Week and is a nationwide campaign organised by the Charities Regulatory Authority and other partner organisations to celebrate the essential role that Trustees’ in Ireland play for the not-for-profit sector and to highlight the opportunities for all of us to make a difference and get involved.
#TrusteesWeekIrl
The week will be supported by the organisations on the steering committee posting on social media using the hashtag and publishing a series of blogs about trustees, you can access these on the Trustees’ Week LinkedIn page here.
Events
Please click on the hyperlink CRA Trustees' Week Events for a list of events being held in Dublin and Limerick. In addition, the Charities Regulator will host public meetings in Limerick (November 13) and Dublin (November 15).Â
E-Learning Module for Trustees
The centrepiece of these will be to showcase the new e-learning module for trustees (which will be hosted on www.charitiesregulator.ie, the Charities Regulator website). There will be case studies from a number of charity trustees and a short presentation by Boardmatch Ireland on how to become a charity trustee.Â
Is climate change affecting the Companies Registration Office?
Climate change can now been seen in the Companies Registration Office (CRO) as, following a drought in prosecutions for a number of years, it has re-started prosecuting companies for late filing of Annual Returns.
The CRO suspended prosecutions following the introduction of the Companies Act. Now that companies and practitioners have had an opportunity to become familiar with the Act the CRO have now re-started a prosecutorial regime.
Currently, there are over 214,000 companies on the Register. Compliance with Annual Return filing deadlines for the past number of years has consistently hit over 80% per year leaving a potential pool of 42,800 companies that might fall into the category of late filing.
Obviously, a number of variables apply but, that said, just over 20 companies have been prosecuted by the CRO. These companies will have to appear before the Courts in November, and without over relying on weather related puns it is fair to describe this level of prosecution as a trickle.
Upon conviction the Courts can apply a Class A Fine (€5,000) per offence. It will be interesting to see how the Courts deal with the prosecutions in November as historically outcomes could best be described as patchy. Will the trickle become a flood? Only time will tell but, I would not be putting out the sandbags just yet!
General Meetings - some basics
GENERAL MEETINGS
General Meetings are meetings specifically for the Member(s) of a company split into two types as outlined below.
Depending on the type of General Meeting companies should at least consider:
o the type of Resolution(s) to be proposed;
o is the option to pass the Resolution(s) in writing;
o what notice periods must be given; and
o what regulations (if any) are contained within the company Constitution.
Annual General Meeting (AGM) – the AGM is the General Meeting most of us would be familiar with, and surprise, surprise, it must be held annually!
The most standard business dealt with at an AGM is:
(a) presentation of Financial Statements to the Members;
(b) re-appointment of Statutory Auditors; and
(c) authorising Directors to fix remuneration of Statutory Auditors.
Companies must hold their first AGM within 18 months from date of incorporation, from then the company must hold its AGM within 15 months from the date of the preceding AGM.
Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) – an EGM is commonlyconvened by the company for events such as:
(a) change of company name; and
(b) changes to Constitution.
However, in exceptional circumstances an EGM can be convened at the request of the Members or Courts. Convening an EGM in this manner usually means the relationship between the Board and Member(s) is dysfunctional, e.g. lack of trust in how the company is being managed or, refusal of members to attend an EGM. Fortunately, the majority of companies will never come across such a situation, and heaven help those that do!
The General Data Protection Regulation - what is relevant for small firms?
With so much publicity on GDPR it can be hard to separate the wood from the trees, and zero in on what is actually relevant.
Planning out a structured response should help the bulk of small firms find life under GDPR not quite as daunting as it may first appear.
As a starting point small firms should consider the following three points.
- What personal data does your firm retain
- Why is the personal data retained
- What does your firm do with the personal data
Ensuring your firm can document answers to the above will go a substantial way towards demonstrating compliance with GDPR.
Reviewing your firms’ position on “Privacy Notices” and “Giving Consent” should be your next port of call. Privacy Notices deal with the lawful basis for processing personal data, the length of time such data will be held, etc. Giving Consent is required to clearly show that consent to use of personal data for specific reasons was freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous.
Companies (small firms in particular) have finite resources so, plan out what resources your firm can put into GDPR, who will be responsible for overseeing implementation, and timelines for completing the above first steps.
The deadline date for complying with GDPR is May 2018 but, for small firms to best manage resources starting now so that the work programme can be spread over months is practical.
Letterheads - what you need to know
One of the most frequent questions we receive is what should a company put on their letterhead. One of the most frequent failures we find is that companies forget to update their letterhead as changes occur.
Basic requirements for letterheads are outlined below, full details can be found in S.151 Companies Act 2014.
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