Checklist · Not-for-Profit, Charities & Associations
Gift fund compliance checklist for a deductible gift recipient (fund, authority or institution)
Checklist to test whether a DGR’s gift fund meets the ATO’s requirements: rules and winding-up clause, what must and must not be credited, separate records, permitted uses, multiple funds, and correcting amounts wrongly received.
- Kind
- Checklist. Steps or checks to work through and tick off.
- Where it applies
- Australia
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 18 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked on 18 October 2026 against the 2 authorities it cites, for Australia.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use on DGR endorsement for the operation of a fund, authority or institution, at each annual compliance review, before a new fundraising program, and when a DGR is merging, winding up or losing endorsement. It does not apply where the organisation is endorsed as a DGR as a whole and the fund is part of it.
Used for these tasks
- Draft a deductible-gift or tax-concession endorsement application
- Build a winding-up and surplus-distribution checklist
Each task page says how far AI may help with the task and what the lawyer must review.
How AI may be used
AI may sort receipts and ledger entries into the checklist categories and check the rules for the required clauses; the lawyer or accountant decides whether each amount is a gift or deductible contribution and whether the fund complies.
AI may
- Check the gift fund rules or constitution for each required characteristic and quote the clause that meets it
- Sort a ledger extract into gifts, deductible contributions, sponsorship, event and commercial receipts, flagged for review
- List transfers out of the gift fund with their stated purpose for the reviewer to test against the principal purpose
AI must not
- Must not decide whether a receipt is a gift or deductible contribution, or whether a use is for the principal purpose
- Must not change the gift fund rules or the winding-up clause
- Must not process donor names and amounts outside the organisation’s approved systems
The lawyer checks
- The rules require surplus gift fund assets to go to another gift deductible fund, authority or institution on winding up or revocation, whichever occurs first
- Only gifts, deductible contributions and money received because of them are credited, and sponsorship, commercial and non-deductible event receipts are kept out
- Any amount wrongly credited has been removed as soon as practicable and the accounts noted
- Each fund, authority or institution has its own gift fund or records that show the amounts and uses for each
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
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