01 February 2016 
Amanda Darley, Head of Operations and Engagement
There is still some confusion over whether universities are caught by the draft legislation intended for large businesses in relation to publishing tax strategies. The legislation is drafted such that if your university group is either a) already in the Senior Accounting Officer regime or b) is incorporated under the Companies Act and it breaches the thresholds set out in the legislation, then under a) your subsidiaries and under b) the university itself will be caught by this new legislation and will have to compile and publish a tax strategy in line with the requirements in the legislation.
What is not so clear is how the government intends the 'relevant bodies' part of the legislation to work. A relevant body is defined as 'a company or any other body corporate', which would seem to include universities which are incorporated by Royal Charter. However, exactly how the government intends 'relevant bodies' to be affected by the legislation is not entirely clear - it appears at present that the turnover of the relevant body is not taken into account when looking at the thresholds for the legislation, just that of actual 'companies' incorporated by the Companies Act. But if the threshold limits for a corporate group are breached (by just the companies), then any 'relevant bodies' within the group may also have to publish their tax strategy e.g. if the turnover of the subsidiary companies in a university group exceed the thresholds then the entire group, including the university, may have to publish their tax strategies. Note - there must be more than one company for the legislation to apply, so groups with a single subsidiary company are not affected.
EY has been in contact with HMRC Policy on BUFDG's behalf and their contacts at HMRC are 'taking internal advice' on this as they had not intended universities to be affected by the legislation. We will keep you up to date with progress.
