Along with our event for Club Accountants, this is now a regular fixture in our annual calendar and a chance for us to update some of the senior people amongst our 20 or so clients in London Clubs. Around 40 of us assembled in the conference room in the middle of November.
Bernie Watson, one of our most experienced partners who is well known amongst the London Clubs and Livery Companies, welcomed everyone before introducing Tania Goodman of Collyer Bristow solicitors who talked about the impact of the Equality Act 2010 on private members clubs. The fact that age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation are now all protected characteristics was considered as well as the questions of “when is a club not an association?” for the purposes of the law and “when is positive action OK?”.
I then provided a run through of the confidential financial, membership, occupancy and catering comparison/benchmarking data (split between clubs with less than and over 2,000 members) showing the performance amongst the participating clubs (details of this research are distributed to those clubs who contribute data).
Phil Salmon then talked about how to manage the imminent VAT rise and also the recent Astra Zeneca case on VAT on gift vouchers in a salary sacrifice scheme. Markas Gilmartin of Epoch Financial Planning provided an overview of the highlights and implications of the proposed changes to pension legislation.
Then Lorraine Owens provided an employment tax update, concentrating on salary sacrifice schemes suggesting that it was more effective to pay employer contributions as employee contributions are net of NIC – so the current 23.8% this year will increase to 25.8% next year when the latest changes come into force. She also talked about late night taxis home and the conditions that must be satisfied to qualify as late working. This was cause for considerable concern for some of those gathered. P11D reporting dispensations rounded off her session.
And then it was time for lunch. And whilst everyone commented on the various topics highlighted during the seminar, as usual the key comment from everyone was how much they valued the opportunity to meet with others from the club circuit to compare notes.
Please let me know if you would like further information on any of the topics raised and/or if you would like to be invited to future events.
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