If you’ve ever sat in a committee meeting arguing over whether your group should be a trust or a society, you’re in good company. In our conversations with people setting up not-for-profit organisations, it’s clear there’s still a good deal of confusion around terms like ‘non-profit’ and ‘not for profit’ Read more
Incorporated Societies The Registrar of Incorporated Societies does not require that the financial statements of Incorporated Societies or Charitable Trusts are audited or reviewed. However, the organisation’s rules may require an auditor or reviewer to be appointed. Many societies and trusts find the cost of auditing (or even of reviewing Read more
This post was drafted with the assistance of AI. A significant number of incorporated societies missed the 5 April 2026 re-registration deadline. Many will have made a deliberate decision not to re-register. However, others for a variety of reasons may have missed the deadline and thus may be wondering how Read more
Recent months have seen a large number of changes, in the regulatory sense, for NZ charities and non-profit organisations. We recently used an AI programme to check whether we are missing any changes and updates. Here we reproduce the response (from Perplexity AI) in full noting, as always with AI, Read more
Did you know that all registered charities must review their governance procedures (Rules, Constitution etc) every 3 years? Steven Moe of Parry Field Lawyers has published a blog on the subject. Entitled “Not ‘Just another Governance Burden for Charities”, the blog starts: “All registered charities must now review their governance Read more
Barry Baker and Jadene Windley of Grant Thornton have recently published a blog with the above title on this very topical subject. The article starts: “New regulations are changing how some incorporated societies report their finances. The Incorporated Societies Act 2022 replaces the 1908 Act, marking the first major overhaul Read more
We are grateful to our friends at GRANT THORNTON NEW ZEALAND who have alerted us to an IRD discussion document which could potentially have major ramifications for a wide variety of “mutual associations” including incorporated societies that are not also registered NZ charities. -o0o- Inland Revenue has just released a Read more
This article has been updated and replaced here
Updated 31 May 2024 Q: We are a church which is a Registered NZ Charity. Some members have suggested that we should, in addition to registration with DIA Charities Services, ‘Incorporate’ with the Companies Office (Registrar of Incorporated Societies). Is this step necessary or advisable? What are the pros and Read more