Parliament's Government Administration Committee has released a report on the Charities Amendment Bill, recommending that it be passed with amendments.

The five-clause Bill was originally part of the omnibus Statutes Amendment Bill, but was separated after a late submission raised an issue with one of the proposed amendments.

The bill, which would amend the Charities Act 2005, seeks to provide that a person cannot be an officer of a charitable entity if they have been convicted of a tax evasion or similar offence. It would also provide that an application for registration as a charitable entry can be treated as withdrawn if an applicant does not respond to a request for information or other notice within the required timeframe.

The bill would also have corrected what was said to be a drafting error by removing the words "or the chief executive" in section 61. The committee now proposes deletion of this proposed amendment and replacement with a section which corrects a drafting error in section 60(3) instead, replacing "chief executive" with "Board".

The Statutes Amendment Bill was referred to the committee on 9 December 2015 and the committee separated Part 3 on 15 June 2016, with this becoming the Charities Amendment Bill. Submissions were then invited, closing on 29 July 2016. The committee received 33 submissions and heard from seven submitters.