Accountable People February 16, 2016 12:00 am Some may remember that, for the 2015 BPS, the RPA briefly asked for details of all the people involved in a business claiming under the scheme. This requirement was quickly dropped in the chaos of the 2015 application. However, the necessity to provide information for ‘accountable people’ has returned for 2016. EU rules mean that information on all accountable people within a business needs to be provided before a payment can be made. This information does not need to be provided prior to claim, but must be given before the claimant can get paid. Therefore, it seems sensible to collect this data alongside all the other information required for the 2016 BPS. For simple businesses (sole traders, some partnerships) the process should be relatively straightforward. However, in other cases the business ownership will be complex, and the owners may not even be in the country. Therefore it may be prudent to start the process rolling sooner rather than later. Accountable Persons An accountable person is someone who makes decisions about how the business is run and shares in the profit and risk of the business. It therefore includes the following types of claimant; Sole traders Partners Directors (if they share profit and risk) Shareholders – subject to the shareholding rules below It would not include; Farm Managers (although they may be making decisions, they do not share in the risk of the business). Note that, even if the Manager is on a profit-related remuneration package, this would not make him an accountable person because he has no ownership stake (risk) in the business. Trustees and Executors (unless they are also receiving profits from the business) The rules where there is a corporate partner in a partnership are not yet clear. We are also endeavouring to find out what needs to be provided if there is a single BPS claim covering more than one business (e.g. where the ownership of farming businesses overlaps). Shareholdings Not all shareholders will be required to submit ‘accountable persons’ information. They will be required to do if; They are one of only two shareholders – both parties will be accountable They are one of three or more shareholders and they own one of the three largest shares in the business They have 50% or more of the shares (or votes) in the businesses – either on their own or in an agreement with others They hold more than 10% of the shares in the business These rules on ownership percentages apply only to shareholders in limited companies. All Partners (even if they have a very small share in the business) need to provide the information. Information The following information will be required from each accountable person; Full name National Insurance Number – note, for those that do not have a National Insurance number the RPA will need to be contacted The percentage of the business they own (or voting rights, if different) for those who are not sole traders The concept of percentage ‘ownership’ of the business can be a bit slippery in a partnership – is it the share of capital accounts, or the profit share taken in the year? Both can move from year to year. It may be best to provide the information on the basis of the voting rights each partner enjoys (although this, in itself, is often not explicitly stated). Process The information can be entered via the RPA’s ‘Rural Payments’ website at https://www.ruralpayments.service.gov.uk/customer-account/login. The person inputting the information will need either Full or Legal Business Permissions. They will need their Customer Reference Number (CRN) and Password from last year to log-on to the site. Note, similar to last year, not all partners, shareholders etc. need to be registered with a CRN with the RPA. It is likely that the function to allow accountable people information to be entered will not be available until the summer, but agents may wish to collect the necessary information beforehand. This is rather unfortunate, as it means that it will be necessary to go back to complete the accountable persons part of the claim, and the BPS application cannot be fully ‘signed-off’ in one go. Implications For most claimants this is simply an additional piece of admin that is required to claim in 2016. It should only need to be done once, with the information continuing to be valid for future years. If the business structure changes though, any new accountable people will need to be made known to the RPA. A small number of people will be involved in more than one BPS-claiming business, without the RPA being aware of this. The ‘accountable persons’ process will bring this to light. In due course, this may prompt a number of ‘separate business’ investigations.
