[Swansea Hackspace] Articles of association, or the constitution of our hackspace

[Justin Mitchell]

On Thu, 2013-10-17 at 18:56 +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Oct 2013 17:39:21 +0100
> Tom Lloyd <napalmllama at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > One thing to add. If the directors are legally responsible for the
> > organisation, then between them they should have a controlling share of the
> > votes, or at least some form of veto.
> 
> The company secretary is ultimately liable for most of the duties of the
> company being performed, that includes being responsible for

Company law has simplified over time, a private limited company does not
require a company secretary, just one Director is sufficient now.

It is the responsibility of the Director(s) to make sure the accounts
and returns are filed.

> You also need to make sure you've got a suitable pet accountant to file
> CT600 and all the returns paperwork (and pay the fees for them all)

small to medium companies are exempt from the audit requirements, so
company accounts can be done yourself, no professionals required, the
current online filing system has a fairly simple pdf that you fill out
the boxes and submit to both companies house and hmrc and takes care of
your annual accounts and corporation tax in one go.

filing your annual return via the website is £13 a year.


> There are some other fun gotchas to be aware of as well. A big one
> several societies hit with a nasty crunch when HMRC started checking up
> is that if the organisation creates stuff and trades it inside of the
> membership it can with care be "trading mutually" and generally exempt
> from corporation tax, but sell one pencil to a non-member and the entire
> house of cards crashes down!

They have tried to simplify it so that filing tax returns isnt so
complex anymore, but the real trick is make sure you dont make a
profit :)


The paperwork required all looks very daunting, but its not all that
complex really.