Donation for a student led event

A question about : Donation for a student led event

Hi all,

I'm organising a student conference and have generously been offered a large sum of money to book a venue, cover catering costs and printing fees etc. The problem I am having, however, is that my university is unwilling to hold the funds (I'm assuming because they don't wish to incur admin costs), and at the moment it's looking like I will have to use my bank account to receive the money and pay for all the bits and bobs. I'm assuming though, this will make me liable to pay tax on it? I'm already self-employed so have to declare my earnings each year, but surely there must be a way for this donation not to be included as income?

Can anyone offer advice on this please?

Thank you!

Best answers:

• Does your self employment relate to this kind of thing? In which case it would be hard to seperate the two. If you are spending all the money received on this conference then you'll presumably have receipts for what is spent so won't affect your profit even if it does go down as self employment income.
  [Assuming that it isn't the VAT threshold that you are worried about.]
  You say _your_ university won't hold the funds. Are you a student there? Will the student union hold them for you?
  Or is it worth setting up a different bank account in your name for this? Obviously this would still be seen as money coming to you but if it was easily identifiable as non-work money then this would be a good way to keep things seperate.
  What would you do if, for example, you received a sizeable cash gift for a birthday present, etc? Where would you put that?
• That's a great point - I've thought about opening an new ISA, as I would if I received a large sum of money as a gift, but as it's not for personal use, and the donor would like receipts, I figured this probably wasn't the best option. But maybe if I open a separate standard b/a that could work...would I not need to declare any of this money for tax purposes?
  The conference doesn't relate to my occupation, so there shouldn't be any confusion in that regard.
  I am a student, and I have tried my student guild but they haven't replied to my emails. I'll keep pestering them though!
  Thank you for your comments
• Ah right, well that sort of gift would just go into my current account. But the donation for the conference is over Ј5k, so obviously not declaring that type of money is more likely to be noticed by the tax man I would have thought!
• Right, so the gift would go into your current account but you wouldn't pay tax on it because it was a gift.
  No reason not to do the same with this money.
  As long as you keep records there would be no concern.
  If a seperate account would make it easier to keep records then do that. But you don't need to.
• Ok, great! Thanks for you advise