Introduction Background
26.A sports club may be registered by HMRC as a Community Amateur Sports Club (CASC) provided it meets certain conditions. CASCs benefit from a number of tax reliefs, including an exemption from tax on certain income and gains (provided the club uses the income and gains for qualifying purposes), Gift Aid, and non-domestic rates relief.
27.The main eligibility conditions a club must meet in order to be registered are that it must:
	be open to the whole community
	be organised on an amateur basis and
	have as its main purpose the provision of facilities for, and the promotion of participation in, one or more eligible sports.
28.HMRC has carried out a review of the eligibility conditions contained in Chapter 9 of Part 13 of the Corporation Tax Act 2010 and concluded that the current legislation is unclear. The Schedule amends and clarifies the conditions for eligibility to the CASC scheme, and gives a number of powers to the Treasury to provide the detail of these conditions in regulations.
29.HMRC will publish a consultation document in spring 2013 setting out the Government’s proposals for the detail of those conditions.
30.Draft regulations will be published later in 2013, after the public consultation. To the extent that they amend primary legislation the draft regulations must be approved by the House of Commons before they can be made by the Treasury.
31.The amendments and the regulations may have retrospective effect. Retrospection is needed to enable HMRC to register a number of clubs whose applications have been on hold pending the outcome of its review of the legislation.