Allergy to austerity

chewmylegoff

macaque wrote: »

One of the reasons why the charity issue has been so prominent is in part due to the power of charities who use donor's money for political lobbying.

Tax benefits for charity donations should be scrapped altogether and if people want to give to charity, they should do so out of taxed income.

Tax is levied to fund schools, hospitals, ambulences etc. Why should people evade tax (which supports essential services) by giving wads of cash to a Donkey sanctury?

I am very suspicious of many charities, especially the big ones. In places like Africa, I think they often do more harm than good by creating chronic dependency.

I think the general idea of tax relief on charitable donations is a good one. The thought process is presumably to encourage people to give money to fund things which help people out which otherwise the government might end up having to fund.

For instance, the govt pays £11 million a year to fund childline. I don't know how much childline costs to run, but say it costs £16 million. If the govt can get private individuals to stump up £4 million by saying it will give another £1 million (which is effectively what gift-aid does) then it is cheaper for the govt to do that than it is to pay the whole £5 million.

That said, the govt could just stop wasting money on thousands of irrelevant and unnecessary NGOs and foreign aid and use that money instead. Guess it depends on your viewpoint.

princeofpounds

To be fair, I have given a fair whack to charity in my time and so have a lot of City mates and I've never met one that does it for the tax break.

This is true; it doesn't seem to be a 'banker' thing. I suspect it's something that's easier to get away with when you are talking about businessmen rather than employees, as the latter have a harder time claiming tax back, being in the much more transparent PAYE system, an employer who is not complicit and so on.

Reading in between the lines on what I've heard on the issue, the problems seem to concentrate on people with foreign links, and no more is being said publicly for fear of racism accusations perhaps. But that's just speculation.

lostinrates

princeofpounds wrote: »

This is true; it doesn't seem to be a 'banker' thing. I suspect it's something that's easier to get away with when you are talking about businessmen rather than employees, as the latter have a harder time claiming tax back, being in the much more transparent PAYE system, an employer who is not complicit and so on.

Reading in between the lines on what I've heard on the issue, the problems seem to concentrate on people with foreign links, and no more is being said publicly for fear of racism accusations perhaps. But that's just speculation.

Some of the examples i know of are british. Overseas connections have been made specifically to not lose income to tax, and religion or education brought in to it to make the situation less transparantly abhorant.

N1AK

The governments latest comments make clear that they intended this measure to limit donations to legitimate charities. They have decided that they no longer want the wealthy to be able to donate to charities of their choice rather than paying it into central government. I'm not saying I disagree with the idea. I do think they should have been clearer up front and it still seems hypocritical given the amount of effort they have put into appearing to be pro-charity up to now.

kabayiri

N1AK wrote: »

The governments latest comments make clear that they intended this measure to limit donations to legitimate charities. They have decided that they no longer want the wealthy to be able to donate to charities of their choice rather than paying it into central government. I'm not saying I disagree with the idea. I do think they should have been clearer up front and it still seems hypocritical given the amount of effort they have put into appearing to be pro-charity up to now.

A government can promote 2 almost opposite viewpoints sometimes, through different channels, and feel entirely comfortable with it. I have seen this first hand.

Do we really think the wealthy people who will lose out due to this policy will take it lying down?

Of course not, they will be plotting their next moves with their financial advisers.