General reports

Who needs to provide a general report? 

All Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations must lodge a general report every financial year. 

When do general reports need to be lodged? 

General reports are lodged between 1 July and 31 December each year. 

Lodging as soon as possible when the financial year ends will help make sure the information is accurate. 

Learn more about how to lodge a general report.

Corporations can apply for an exemption or extension, in certain circumstances. The Registrar, however, is not likely to grant exemptions for a general report.

The Registrar will not normally grant an extension where annual events make it hard for a corporation to follow the rules. 

What’s in the general report? 

All general reports have information about the corporation, its people and its financial information.

About the corporation

This section includes the corporation’s: 

  • name
  • Indigenous Corporation Number (ICN)
  • Australian Business Number (ABN) – if it has one
  • size
  • main place of business
  • registered office or document access address
  • contact details
  • activities.

Corporation’s people

This section has information about:

  • the contact person or secretary
  • directors.

Basic financial and employee information

The financial section includes information on:

  • income
  • assets
  • deductible gift recipient status
  • number of employees.

Declaration

The general report also must include a declaration that the information given in the report is correct. The declaration can be made by:

  • a director
  • the secretary if it’s a large corporation.

If the directors delegate lodging the report to someone else, the declaration must be based on a resolution of the directors. 

List of members 

Include a list of members with the report. 

A list of members is a copy of the register of members at a moment in time. With your general report, you must provide the list as at 30 June.

Some corporations provide their member list to ORIC once a year but others lodge updates all year round. Keeping information up to date as changes happen makes it easier to complete the general report each year, particularly if you have a lot of members. 

Learn more about updating members

How to check if your corporation has lodged its general report 

Anyone can see the status and full history of a corporation’s timeliness with lodging reports by viewing its corporation extract in the Register of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporations. 

Find your corporation in the Register of corporations; the extract is available via a link in the search results. 

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