Arrived in OZ 12 hours ago -- not able to find time to read all of this thread -- but some quickies -- Steve is not a sole trader -- you are making donations, gifts or presents to him .. it is not taxable income in his hands and for a donor falls foul of inheritance tax rules if you a) donate more than £3000 a year in slugs of £250 - and b) also die within 7 years . Do remember I was never a personal tax specialist -- so this might be a slightly incorrect summary -- but the gist is right.
As regards the change of bank details -- the logic is straight forward -- when I stood down mid Sept - rather than ask all existing standing order donors to cancel the payment to my Steve account and reissue a new instruction to their bank -- when there might well have been quite a few who were stopping at Dec anyway .. so scope to ignore forget cock up etc -- we decided to let things lie -- and each 1st of the month I transfer to Steves own personal account the balance and inform Idai of the detail. This involves me in about 10 minutes work a month -- and I am happy to continue to do this. Now in 2016 the sums coming into my Steve account will diminish as those who were in for 12 months will stop -- and later on April / May -- I ( or we) might have a go at getting those that are still continuing to transfer across.
At one time there was discussion amongst the team that several people should have access to Steves personal account -- I advised Steve against this -- as the scope for misunderstandings, an dlack of accountability was too great .. whether he took my advice I do not know. The need to actually PAY things was tiny --, Steve carried a debit card on my Steve account and the MK crew had a float advance which they accounted to me on a monthly basis and were then reimbursed, and as I discovered when I stepped away the debit card for Steves personal account was already held by one of the MK crew anyway. Any other payments were extremely unusual ( entry to 24 hour TT etc and all the PBP organisation , ferries, hotels , support vehicle)) -- so the need for multiple access to the account seemed inappropriate to me. And without in any way casting aspersions -- there are many cases of trusted officials and treasurers borrowing cash which they always intend to pay back -- but actually fail to do so. I am afraid I bring 40 years of cynicism with me .. so my mantra would be "" Minimise the risk"" so in this case .. reduce the number of people with access to the cash..
As regards total funds -- when I stepped down -- as far as I could judge, given the cash balance and even assuming that no standing orders continued into 2016 - there would have been sufficient funds for Steve to have continued in the same sort of way thru to Aug 2016.. but if he started using vehicle transfers a lot , or decided that 3 months at a gite in Southern France was needed or serious professional advice on nutrition and diet then these would have been factors that I would not have considered as they were and are "" Unknowns "" .
I will read this thread more carefully when I hav etime -- but if you do have a specific query that I can fairly reply to ( and exact detail of the cash balance I handed over etc is inappropriate ) -- please pm me