More than 8,000 UK sports clubs can now file their tax returns online
Community amateur sports clubs have previously been shut out of low-cost tax filing software because they don't have a company number.
More than 8,000 community amateur sports clubs across the UK, along with thousands of small charities, can now file their corporation tax returns online for £25, following an update to the filing service WeFile.
Community amateur sports clubs, or CASCs, are local clubs registered with HMRC for tax relief: the village cricket club, the town bowls club, the Sunday league football side. HMRC publishes the register on GOV.UK, and it currently lists more than 8,000 of them. Clubs and charities are required to file a corporation tax return when HMRC asks them to.
Until now most had little choice but to pay an accountant. Almost all online filing software is built around a Companies House registration number, and a CASC or an unincorporated charity does not have one, leaving volunteer treasurers locked out of the cheap, self-service route available to ordinary limited companies.
WeFile now supports clubs and charities that have no company number, including charitable incorporated organisations, unincorporated charities and charitable trusts, identifying them instead by their charity number or, for a sports club, its HMRC tax reference. The service completes the CT600 return along with the CT600E supplementary pages that charities and CASCs must file to claim exemption from tax on their charitable income.
“A club treasurer is usually a volunteer doing the books at the kitchen table on a Sunday night. They're not tax specialists and they shouldn't have to be. These are organisations turning over a few thousand pounds a year, and the cost of getting the paperwork right was wildly out of proportion to the size of the club. It should take an evening and cost less than a set of away shirts,” said Muhammet Turan, founder of WeFile.
The platform works through the return as a step-by-step form, calculates the corporation tax due automatically and checks the figures against HMRC's validation rules before submission, so errors are caught before a return is rejected.
There are around 171,000 registered charities in England and Wales, close to 25,000 in Scotland and more than 7,000 in Northern Ireland.
Clubs and charities should note that WeFile files the corporation tax return with HMRC. Annual accounts and the trustees' report must still be filed separately with the relevant regulator: the Charity Commission in England and Wales, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator in Scotland, or the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland.
WeFile launched for small limited companies filing CT600 returns and Companies House accounts, with dormant company accounts from £15 and trading company filings from £25. The service is available at wefile.co.uk.