by John McCarthy Consulting Ltd. | Mar 7, 2022 | Blog, News
On Friday 4 March 2022 the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies in Ireland (CCAB-I) issued updated guidance applicable to accountants in practice for immediate use.
The Guidance is a widely respected and hugely valuable document among accountants as it sets out the minimum criteria that must be adhered to in order to comply with the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Acts 2010 to 2021 (‘the Act’) in the Republic of Ireland.
Key changes in the legislation are reflected in additional guidance in areas such as:
- Greater emphasis on identification of beneficial owners of businesses;
- Expanding the definition of tax adviser, letting agent and intermediaries at art auctions;
- The definition of a Politically Exposed Person (PEP) to include any individual performing a prescribed function;
- There is a specific list of enhanced due diligence measures that the designated person is required to apply when dealing with a customer established, or residing, in a High-risk third country;
- The new requirement in place since 23 April 2021 that prior to commencing a business relationship is established, reasonable steps must be taken to verify the beneficial ownership of corporate clients including confirming the beneficial ownership with the relevant Central Register. Where a Designated person identifies a ‘discrepancy’ (as defined) in the Act, i.e. where the entry is inconsistent or incorrect between its own records and those maintained by the Central Register, it must notify the relevant Registrar.
- There is a similar requirement to notify the relevant Registrar where there is evidence of ‘non-compliance’ (as defined) in the Act, i.e. where the register is blank, it must notify the relevant Registrar.
A copy of the guidance may be accessed here.
Specially tailored up to date AML Training that meets the requirements of the legislation is available on request, on Zoom, in person or as a hybrid event, with a free video recording supplied afterwards, for future viewing. Contact john@jmcc.ie for further details.
To ensure your letters of engagement and similar templates are up to date visit our site here where immediate downloads are available in Word format. A bulk discount is available for orders of five or more items if bought together.
For our latest Audit Quality Control Manual (October 2021) (implementing the latest Irish Audit & Accounting Supervisory Authority standards including ISQC1 on audit quality control) click here. View the Table of Contents here.
We also have an up to date Anti-Money Laundering Procedures Manual (September 2021) – View the Table of Contents click here.
by John McCarthy Consulting Ltd. | Feb 21, 2022 | Blog, News
Have you checked what companies are registered at your office address, lately? Well, maybe now is a good time!
Police sometimes describe the practice by which drug dealers take over someone’s home (often a vulnerable person) as a base for their activities as ‘cuckooing’. It now appears that this phenomenon has ‘come home to roost’ in some accountancy firms – at least in the UK.
According to a 2021 report in the SARS in Action magazine of the National Crimes Agency the new style of cuckoo uses an accountancy firm’s address as a registered office address without the knowledge or consent of the firm.
The most likely explanation for using the accountancy firm’s address is that it provides credibility which may be used to facilitate fraud. In many cases, the company will combine using the address with a Post Office redirection arrangement so the accountancy firm will not receive any mail which might trigger an investigation.
And it gets worse. Sean Kavanagh from leading company formation agency, Company Formations International in Ballsbridge explains that it is impossible to have a fraudulent Registered Office removed from your address as the CRO do not have any legislative basis for doing so, and therefore don’t.
CRO personnel went before the Oireachtas Committee for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to discuss this and other anomalies including full blown identity theft in December 2021. We still await some positive developments from this meeting.
You have been warned!
To ensure your letters of engagement and similar templates are up to date visit our site here where immediate downloads are available in Word format. A bulk discount is available for orders of five or more items if bought together.
For our latest Audit Quality Control Manual (October 2021) (implementing the latest Irish Audit & Accounting Supervisory Authority standards including ISQC1 on audit quality control) click here. View the Table of Contents here.
We also have an up to date Anti-Money Laundering Procedures Manual (September 2021) – View the Table of Contents click here.
by John McCarthy Consulting Ltd. | Feb 21, 2022 | Blog, News
There is currently no specific modern legislation dealing with co-operatives in Ireland. The Industrial and Provident Societies (IPS) Acts 1893-2021 come from another century and do not mirror up to date company law principles. Currently there are 960 Industrial and Provident Societies registered, comprised mainly of various agricultural co-operatives, group water schemes and housing co-operatives.
There are many aspects of good practice set out in company law (in the Companies Act, 2014) that are applicable to co-operatives, either directly or with adaptation.
Consequently the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment commenced a consultation on 28 January 2022 on proposals to update the IPS legislation.
Amongst the proposals, it is intended that:
- The legislation will cross apply six parts of CA 2014, with amendments needed to adapt to the particular circumstances of co-operatives, relating to:
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- Examinership and
- Winding up (both of these are already cross-applied in the current IPS Acts);
- Investigations;
- Compliance and Enforcement,
- Receivers and
- Financial Statements.
- The legislation will generally replicate, with some amendments, provisions from other Parts of the Companies Act, 2014 i.e.
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- Directors’ Duties;
- Charges and Debentures and
- Functions of the Registrar.
- The legislation will also use the relevant parts of Companies Act, 2014 to give assurance to stakeholders in areas dealing with
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- Registration;
- Corporate Governance
- Mergers and
- Strike-off and Restoration.
There are just 12 questions in this consultation and the response deadline is 5pm this Friday 25 February 2022 and responses must be sent to coopconsultation@enterprise.gov.ie.
The full consultation (and response template) is available here.
To ensure your letters of engagement and similar templates are up to date visit our site here where immediate downloads are available in Word format. A bulk discount is available for orders of five or more items if bought together.
For our latest Audit Quality Control Manual (October 2021) (implementing the latest Irish Audit & Accounting Supervisory Authority standards including ISQC1 on audit quality control) click here. View the Table of Contents here.
We also have an up to date Anti-Money Laundering Procedures Manual (September 2021) – View the Table of Contents click here.
by John McCarthy Consulting Ltd. | Sep 29, 2020 | Blog, News
The Charities Governance Code Explained
In the last few weeks we have covered several topics in relation to Charities in Ireland arising from the 2019 Charities Regulator Report published in the summer.
We have covered the Types of Charities and Charities by the Numbers.
This week we will look at the Charities Governance Code (the Code). The Code explains the minimum standards required to effectively manage and control all registered charities in Ireland. These standards must be applied from 2020. The first year that registered charities will be expected to report on their compliance with the Code will be 2021.
The Governance Code is structured with two main types of charity in mind:
- volunteer-only charities and
- charities with a small number of paid staff
as these types of charity reflect the majority of registered charities in Ireland.
The Code is tailored to encourage charities of all sizes to have better administration, financial and management systems in place. Underpinning the Six Principles are two main types of standard (depending upon the size and complexity of charities) which are
- the ‘core standards’ (of which there are 32 in total) that all charities must apply (including the charity’s main purpose, whether any private benefit arises, goal setting to raise funds, annual review), and
- ‘additional standards’ that only certain charities need apply (including developing strategic and operational plans).
The six principles of governance that all charities must apply are:
- Advancing charitable purpose – how the charity fits into one or more of the four categories of ‘charitable purpose’ as defined in the Charities Act, 2009;
- Behaving with integrity – setting an ethical culture and tone;
- Leading People – providing leadership to volunteers, employees and contractors;
- Exercising control – putting mechanisms in place to abide by all legal and regulatory requirements
- Working effectively – induction training for Board members and running efficient Board meetings, having people with the right mix of skills and experience; and
- Being accountable and transparent – accounting for the money (including producing unabridged financial statements) and being open/transparent about all charity matters.
Who is the Code for?
The Governance Code document should be used by all trustees of any kind of charity, being:
- Committee members;
- Council members; and
- Board members or directors of the charity.
How should the Code be used?
Trustees should make themselves familiar with the six principles of the Code and should consider them when assessing compliance with actions taken within the charity and ensure that documentary evidence is kept demonstrating how the standards are met.
Reporting Compliance
From 2021 every charity must submit an annual return to the Charities Regulator demonstrating compliance with the Code and providing valid reasons for non-compliance.
Charities will use a 20 page Compliance Record Form identifying actions taken to meet the Governance Code standards, while the amount of evidence expected to support the level of compliance will vary, depending on the size and complexity of the charity.
The guide to the Governance Code with which all trustees should be familiar, is available here.
New to our website this week are five engagement letter templates:
Our Charity Accounting and Charity Audit webinars are available here for immediate access and come with much support material as an extra free bonus and we have several audit template letters for charities that are up to date for SORP, GDPR and Coronavirus (COVID-19), downloadable for immediate tailoring in MS Word.
For a full list of all our webinar recordings, please go to our webinar site here. They may be viewed at any time for 12 months after the date of purchase.
We also have a complete set of charities’ letters of representation in our publications store, updated for SORP and Coronavirus (COVID-19), and letters of engagement for immediate download here. There are also versions available for charities that are not yet implementing the SORP.
by John McCarthy Consulting Ltd. | Sep 13, 2020 | Blog, News
Charities Regulator Report by the Numbers
As we saw in last weeks’ blog there is a wide variety of charity on the Register of Charities in Ireland.
This week we look at the percentage of charities by income and numbers of employees.
Charities by Income
52% of charities had annual income of more than €100,000, 32% had annual income of between €10,000 and €100,000 while there was a sizeable 16% of charities with income per annum of less than €10,000.
Within the 2,165 charities reporting an annual income of over €250,000 in 2019, 875 (40%) had income in excess of €1 million.
Charities by Employee Numbers
43% of charities had no employees. 42% reported having between 1-19 employees, 8% had between 20-49, 5% had 50-249, while 2% had between 250-499.
The 2019 Charities Regulator Annual Report can be found here.
Our Charity Accounting and Charity Audit webinars are available here for immediate access and come with much support material as an extra free bonus.
We also have several audit template letters for charities that are up to date for FRS 102 SORP, GDPR and Coronavirus (COVID-19) downloadable for immediate tailoring in MS Word.
For a full list of all our webinar recordings, please go to our webinar site here. They may be viewed at any time for 12 months after the date of purchase.
We also have a complete set of charities letters of representation in our publications store, updated for SORP and Coronavirus (COVID-19), and letters of engagement for immediate download here. There are also versions available for charities not yet implementing the SORP.
