Charities Annual Return

Playcentre Aotearoa has submitted the group annual charities return on behalf of all playcentres who belong to the Playcentre Aotearoa charity group.  To complete the process, each charity must confirm their charity’s details, including updating officers.  Unfortunately, Charities changed our set-up so that this work was allocated to the group for each centre. Only the individual charities can certify the correctness of the information, so the task has now been delegated to each charity.

Each charity will have received an email in the last two weeks advising that this task has been delegated to the centre.  Can you please log-in to https://www.charities.govt.nz/ and complete the details by the 6th of April, to allow the group annual return process to be completed.

If you don’t know your charity number, you can search the charities register from this page. If you have don’t know your password, you can use the forgot password link to get a new one sent to your registered email (which should be your centre email). 

A reminder that individual playcentres who are charities but not part of the group must do their own annual return.  You can join the group by emailing [email protected] quoting your charity name and number and advising that your centre has agreed to this.

Playcentres who have become branches/are becoming branches still need to do the work required above, as charity obligations will continue until the charity is wound up at the completion of the branch process.

GST on Bulk Funding

All playcentres currently receive bulk funding at the same Funded Child Hours rates whether GST registered or not.  The Ministry of Education have advised that playcentres which are not GST registered will not receive the deemed GST content of Funded Child Hour rates once their new funding system (Pourato) is implemented.  This is expected to be on 1st July 2025.  Playcentre Aotearoa have negotiated an increase in general funding rates to compensate for this change, which will take effect at the same date.

To receive GST-inclusive bulk funding on 1st July 2025, a GST number will need to be provided to the Ministry for all GST-registered centres.  Playcentre’s Finance team have this information for the majority of centres.  In addition, centres who have signed the branch agreement and have fully transitioned finances to be a branch of Playcentre Aotearoa will be using Playcentre Aotearoa’s GST number. 

If you are contacted by the Finance team, please provide them with your GST number, if you have one, so your playcentre can receive maximum funding.