Singapore legislation
Clause 5
Clause 5
Registration of charities
(1)
The Commissioner shall continue to keep a register of charities in which shall be entered such particulars as he may from time to time determine of any charity registered therein.
(2)
There shall be entered in the register every charity not excepted by subsection (4); and a charity so excepted may be entered in the register at the request of the charity, but (whether or not it was excepted at the time of registration) may at any time, and shall at the request of the charity, be removed from the register.
(3)
Any institution which no longer appears to the Commissioner to be a charity shall be removed from the register with effect, where the removal is due to any change in its purposes or trusts, from the date of that change; and there shall also be removed from the register any charity which ceases to exist or does not operate.
(4)
The following charities are not required to be registered:
any charity specified in the Schedule; and
any charity which is excepted by regulations made under this Act.
(5)
Any application to the Commissioner for a charity to be registered shall be accompanied with copies of its trusts (or, if the trusts are not set out in any document, particulars of them) and such other documents or information as the Commissioner may require for the purpose of the application.
(6)
It shall be the duty of —
the charity trustees of any charity which is not registered nor excepted from registration to apply for it to be registered, and to supply the documents and information required by subsection (5); and
the charity trustees (or last charity trustees) of any institution which is for the time being registered to notify the Commissioner if it ceases to exist, or if there is any change in its trusts, or in its particulars entered in the register, and to furnish the Commissioner with particulars of any such change and copies of any new trusts or alterations of the trusts,and any person who makes default in carrying out any of the duties imposed by this subsection shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $5,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both and, in the case of a continuing offence, to a further fine not exceeding $50 for every day or part thereof during which the offence continues after conviction, and the Commissioner may by order require that person to make good that default.
(7)
The register (including entries cancelled when institutions are removed from the register) shall be open to public inspection at all reasonable times, except in so far as regulations otherwise provide.
(8)
The register of charities may be prepared and kept in such manner as the Commissioner may think fit, including in electronic form in a computer.
(9)
Where any information contained in the register is not in documentary form, subsection (7) shall be construed as requiring the information to be available for public inspection in legible form at all reasonable times.