Home Education meet ups and tax?

[votisit]

My daughter Home Educates my grand children, she is part of a growing community of Home Educators and goes to regular meet ups in local halls to be with other parents and children. One weekly meet up has become too big for the hall and the person that organises it would like other parents to hire the hall on different days to accommodate the growing numbers.

The hall charges about £10 per hour, it is hired for 2 hours. The fee at the door is £3. Anything left over from charging an entrance fee is used to buy resources for the children to play with, toys, books, paints etc etc.

My daughter would like to organise her own event but I'm very concerned that Mr Tax Man will see this as a business and start asking for TAX.

It's not run as a business but from everything I've read, even non profit organisations are still subject to TAX.

Is there a way around this? rather than charging a fee at the door, calling it a donation?

I'm still worried about the assets. All the resources purchased with the money will be seen as assets right? isn't that taxable? can this be done another way so that Mr Tax man doesn't get involved? or is it not possible.

 

[Pingu]

ask HMRC they can be surprisingly helpful

 

[dessiato]

Set it up as an educational charity? The HMRC people will help with information and advice. Also try your local council for voluntary/volunteer services. They should have a lot of appropriate information.

 

[BigTom]

Set it up as an educational charity? The HMRC people will help with information and advice. Also try your local council for voluntary/volunteer services. They should have a lot of appropriate information.

charities are hugely complex to setup and have lots of requirements around auditing etc. Not a good idea.
Set up as a non-incorporated not-for-profit organisation if needed at all. You don't have to do anything except write down what the organisation is for, have a chair and a treasurer and say what will happen to any assets if the organisation ceases to exist. Check out exactly what you need to do if you do follow this route as it's been over 10 years since I've set one up but there's basically no requirements at all and it should allow her to house the activities and money in a separate organisation so any tax obligations are clear - but if there's no profit, there won't be any tax to pay anyway and it'd just be a case of keeping a spreadsheet with income and spending and receipts in case HMRC decide to audit.
As pingu said, call HMRC, they are really helpful with this kind of thing generally.