On 16 March 2016, the Fourth Session of the 12th National People’s Congress published the Charity Law of the People’s Republic of China (“Charity Law”), which will be effective from 1 September 2016.
The aim of the Charity Law is to protect the legal rights of charity organizations, donators, volunteers and beneficiaries, and to make it easier to donate to charity foundations. According to the Charity Law, charity organizations are non-profit organizations in the form of foundations, social institutions or social service agencies. Before starting operations, the charity organization needs to make an application for recognition at the city level government.
The charity organizations have the obligation to report to the government on the following topics: fund raising arrangements, charity projects implementation, fund management, and employee salaries. For public charitable fund-raising activities longer than six months, the organization is requested to disclose information of such fund-raising to the government once every three months, and the information needs to be disclosed fully within three months after completion of the public fund-raising activity.
For more information, see
www.npc.gov.cn/npc/dbdhhy/12_4/2016-03/21/content_1985714.htm .