Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Act 2012 (Cwth)

CHAPTER 8 - INTERPRETATION  

PART 8-1 - CORE CONCEPTS  

Division 205 - Core concepts  

Subdivision 205-A - Entities  

SECTION 205-5   ENTITIES  

205-5(1)    

Entity
means any of the following:

(a) an individual;

(b) a body corporate;

(c) a body politic;

(d) any other unincorporated association or body of persons;

(e) a trust.

Note: The term entity is used in a number of different but related senses. It covers all kinds of legal person. It also covers groups of legal persons, and other things, that in practice are treated as having a separate identity in the same way as a legal person does.

205-5(2)    
Paragraph (1)(d) does not include a non-entity joint venture (within the meaning of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 ).

205-5(3)    
The trustee of a trust is taken to be an entity consisting of the person who is the trustee, or the persons who are the trustees, at any given time.

Note 1: This is because a right or obligation cannot be conferred or imposed on an entity that is not a legal person.

Note 2: The entity that is the trustee of a trust does not change merely because of a change in the person who is the trustee of the trust, or persons who are the trustees of the trust.

205-5(4)    
A legal person can have a number of different capacities in which the person does things. In each of those capacities, the person is taken to be a different entity.

Example: In addition to his or her personal capacity, an individual may be:

(a) sole trustee of one or more trusts; and

(b) one of a number of trustees of a further trust.

In his or her personal capacity, he or she is one entity. As trustee of each trust, he or she is a different entity. The trustees of the further trust are a different entity again, of which the individual is a member.

205-5(5)    
If a provision refers to an entity of a particular kind, it refers to the entity in its capacity as that kind of entity, not to that entity in any other capacity.

Example: A provision that refers to a company does not cover a company in a capacity as trustee, unless it also refers to a trustee.