PREPARING/UPDATING YOUR COOPERATIVE'S CALENDAR OF YEAR-ROUND ACTIVITIES AND COMPLIANCE DEADLINES

The coming year-end is also the end of the calendar year of almost all cooperatives.  Before we are all pre-occupied with the coming Christmas and New Year holidays, let's make time to update our year-round calendar of activities, as well as our compliance deadlines.

2012 Budget and Developmental Plan:


By this time, the budgets would have been discussed, agreed upon and approved by the Board of Directors.  Basically, this is tied up with the business plans of the cooperative for the coming year.

The budget proposal and developmental plan is logically the output of a year-end (or last quarter) review of operations; and conduct of some kind of a planning session.


For cooperatives, who hold their traditional Christmas Special General Assembly, this is the time when  the 2012 budget and developmental plans are submitted for the approval of the membership.


The candidates for the various officer positions of the cooperative would have been pre-qualified by this time by the cooperative's Election Committee.  Those who passed muster will then be officially introduced during this Special Christmas Assembly.


For others, these budget and development plans are submitted during the annual General Assembly conducted within the first 90 days after the end of the calendar year.

Compliance with conditions of Certificate of Tax Exemption (CTE):

Take this coming Special Christmas Assembly as an occasion to gather the Tax Information Numbers (TINs) of your members.  Take note also of the deadline for compliance with other conditions of the CTE.  When gathering the TINs, measures should be undertaken to assure that the TINs are genuine.  

Your cooperative will be liable to the Bureau of Internal Revenue.  Why not make your members submit a certified true copy of their TIN cards, with the copy duly signed by the members?  Due diligence is necessary. They can submit these when they get their Christmas Assembly gifts or allowance.

Another compliance deadline worth noting is the submission to the Cooperative Development Authority of the documentary requirements for your cooperative's branches, whether new or existing.  If I recall it right, the deadline is sometime on the first or second week of February 2012.  But check the appropriate CDA memo circular to be sure.

Calendar of Cooperative's Year-round Activities:


It is best to ask your cooperative manager to make, or update and submit to the members of the Board of Directors the calendar of activities for the whole year of 2012.  Include the reproduction of all CDA memorandum circulars for 2011 and furnish all the in-coming/new officers to be elected/appointed in 2012.  There are some 21 such CDA circulars issued so far in 2011.

These are just some of those you need to include.  So there.  (END).