Is Maugham deliberately misleading people by calling GLP a 'non-profit' company.
I think 'non-profit' might have a more specific meaning in countries like the US, but as far as I understand it, all it means in the UK is 'a company that hasn't made a profit'.
The GLP website claims that
Charities in the UK are bound by regulations to make sure they focus on the public benefit. These rules are often flouted, but they’re very strictly drawn around political campaigning.
I don't really understand why the rules on politics and charities would be overly restrictive for an organisation like the GLP.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/political-activity-and-campaigning-by-charities#the-rules-on-political-activity
The main restriction seems to be that they can't promote a political party or candidate, however "Charities can support a policy that is supported by a political party or candidate. You can work with political parties or candidates to influence their decisions, provided this supports your charity’s purpose and your charity remains independent."
What is prohibitively restrictive about that?
Of course there are stricter rules about charity reporting on finance and related parties...
They say...
We have an asset lock which means any profit goes back into the organisation – not to shareholders or members.
I would imagine that HMRC doesn't pay much attention to this 'asset lock'. A profit is a profit, whether or not it is distributed, and there are other ways to extract funds, e.g. if one company were paying another company owned by a related party. This is the kind of thing that would need to be disclosed in charity accounts.
I'm not suggesting Maugham is making millions, just that I think he is offering a rather meally mouthed explanation for avoiding the scrutiny and reporting requirements of the Charity Commission, while throwing around words like 'non profit' to suggest that he is complying with some kind of non-existent regulatory body.