Capital Grants for Community Asset Purchases by Voluntary Bodies – VAT
28.07.2021
In noting this opportunity for voluntary bodies to access significant grants of up to £1m to support the purchase of local assets including sports facilities to protect them from loss in the community we were reminded of the issues that we often find when VAT implications either from these purchases or the ongoing running of these facilities is forgotten at the business planning stage. For readers interested in learning more about the access to funding there is a note we saw from Newport City Council promoting the fund below:
“Community Ownership Fund
UK Government has published the prospectus for the Community Ownership Fund. Under the fund, matched capital grants of up to £250,000 will be available to support voluntary organisations to purchase and protect local assets at risk of loss without community intervention. In exceptional cases, up to £1million matched capital grants will be available for some sporting facilities.
The deadline for applications for this bidding round is 13 August 2021. A second round will open in December 2021 and a third in May 2022.
Voluntary organisations may be eligible to secure matched funding for their Community Ownership Fund project through Social Investment Cymru (SIC). To discuss this opportunity, please contact the SIC team: sic@wcva.cymru . “
From the VAT perspective the message is simply to ensure you give thought to the implications of any community asset purchase or transfer project you are involved with as you will need to consider whether your funding needs to cover VAT you will pay but NOT be able to recover. Being a charity or a not-for-profit entity does not guarantee you a VAT free existence on things you buy or income you generate. It is always best to invest time early in the planning stage to get things right – VAT wise.
Centurion – here for when VAT gets complicated – emailus@centurionvat.com
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