About the organisation
An organisation applied to the ACNC for charity registration with the subtypes advancing education and advancing culture.
Its activities included the provision of regular language classes (for a language other than English), as well as other events that encouraged a greater understanding and appreciation of language and culture.
This included language study programs, events that facilitated cultural exchange, and sharing cultural resources for the community in which the organisation operated.
About the application
Its application detailed its work and was accompanied by its governing document, aimed at demonstrating its compliance with the ACNC’s Governance Standards.
While not making a definitive assessment on registration eligibility, the ACNC identified that the organisation may be eligible to backdate its registration if it met the relevant registration requirements.
To help the ACNC further assess this, we asked the organisation for more information and evidence that its activities and governing document had not significantly changed since the date it was seeking to backdate its registration to.
An organisation may wish to backdate their charity registration.
Backdating can help accurately reflect when an organisation began its charitable activities, and can also support an organisation’s application for retrospective tax concessions from the Australian Taxation Office.
However, backdating is not available to all organisations, and eligibility will depend on whether the organisation met the conditions of eligibility, and has continued to meet them.
If an organisation applies to have its registration backdated, it can choose from when the backdating occurs. Registration can only be backdated to the date from which it met all eligibility conditions, including that it had been established and had an active ABN. The earliest the ACNC can backdate registration is 3 December 2012 (the ACNC’s establishment date).
An organisation’s establishment date varies depending on its structure:
- Incorporated associations or companies are considered established at the date of incorporation
- Unincorporated associations or trusts are considered established at the date the organisation resolved to be established and its governing document came into effect
- Organisations established under legislation are considered established the date the legislation was enacted.
The following information must be provided for the ACNC to consider backdating an application:
- the organisation’s establishment date
- the requested date from which registration would be backdated
- documentation such as:
- previous versions of the organisation’s governing document (if it has changed)
- financial reports for each year from the requested backdated registration date.
About the registration process
During the registration process, the organisation provided evidence to the ACNC that its activities and governing documents had not changed substantially since the date it was seeking to backdate its registration to.
The organisation also included its previous and current annual strategic plans.
These documents outlined the organisation’s objectives and activities and illustrated the range of ways it provided educational language opportunities and events that promoted culture and customs of language and ethnic groups.
Outcome
The organisation was registered as a charity as it has the charitable purposes of advancing education and advancing culture, and the registration was backdated to 3 December 2012.