Daryl's Blog

I'm right out of ideas for this weeks blog, so I will confine myself to charity related comment on today's budget. Some time ago the Government, in their anxiety to lay law upon law on us introduced a law to stop wealthy people obtaining advantage from charity donations. It was far too complex and of course penalised the innocent, leaving the guilty to carry on but being a little more cunning. Recently I 've advised a number of people who have been wanting to make large donations (or charities who have been offered large donations). The Government have now announced their intention to replace the current rules, probably by something even more complex. Let's be a bit counter-intuitive about some of these things, scrap the rules altogether, and strengthen the audit and IE rules. (The substantial donor rules are far too complex to go into here; as usual they are a lawyer's dream)

On the topic of big donations, a trustee wrote to me last week: someone wanted to make a donation through his charity to a charity in Malawi. It had to go through a UK charity to get the gift aid. As it stood, it fell foul of anti-terrorist legislation would you believe! I don't think they were terrorists. It won't work because it would come into the bracket of conduit giving. There are ways to legitimately overcome these difficulties, which I passed onto the trustee. Do be careful though, if you are a trustee and someone wants to pass money through your charity; get it wrong and you could be personally liable. Get advice. (Oh, that's what I do, and I said I wouldn't use this to tout for business!) Actually this bit of legislation is quite good and doesn't need dismantling, just make sure you get good advice and do it properly.