Charities Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 82:"Page 138, line 33, at end insert—" ““(   )   In subsection (1A) for the words from ““neither”” to ““exceeds”” substitute ““the charity’s gross income does not exceed””.”” The noble Lord said: Section 48(1) of the 1993 Act requires every registered charity to prepare an annual return in the form prescribed by the commission, subject to subsection (1)(a). That subsection disapplies this general requirement for any charity which has an annual income and an annual expenditure of less than £10,000. As the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, knows, there are thresholds elsewhere in charity law that, much like this one, have tests for both income and expenditure. The audit threshold, for example, currently requires a charity to have its accounts audited if either its income or expenditure is above the prescribed level. To simplify the audit threshold, we decided to do away with the expenditure test. Once the Bill is enacted, the amount of a charity’s expenditure will be irrelevant for the purposes of deciding whether or not its accounts are to be audited. We think it sensible to carry this simplification through to other thresholds that have both an income test and an expenditure test. This amendment therefore abolishes the expenditure test in the annual return threshold in Section 48 of the 1993 Act. I beg to move. On Question, amendment agreed to.