General Chat

Janey-I have C&P'd this as it's far clearer than I could explain

How Gift Aid works

The Gift Aid scheme is for gifts of money by individuals who pay UK tax. Gift Aid donations are regarded as having basic rate tax deducted by the donor. Charities or CASCs take your donation - which is money you've already paid tax on - and reclaim the basic rate tax from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) on its 'gross' equivalent - the amount before basic rate tax was deducted.

Basic rate tax is 20 per cent, so this means that if you give £10 using Gift Aid, it’s worth £12.50 to the charity. For donations between 6 April 2008 and 5 April 2011 the charity or CASC will also get a separate government supplement of three pence on every pound you give.

That is how a lot of the smaller charities survive,so 3% is a significant drop to a charities income.

Thank you for explaining your country's system-you do have to wonder why everything has to be so damn complicated

Y'know, once again, I have to point out that I actually didn't express an opinion about the announcement regarding UK foreign aid.

That is, I didn't claim moral superiority for myself, or my country, or boast that my country is better than yours, or even criticize your country. None of that. Not at all.

My opinion was about ugly things being said about aid recipients.



And SRS, I wasn't meaning you shouldn't duplicate! I was agreeing with you, as you had with me, even if inadvertently. ;)

How do I know what "charity begins at home" means to you, JackInTheBox?

Because it was so obvious nobody could have missed it.

In a discussion of cuts to international aid, you say "Charity begins at home".

I dunno. Maybe you meant "we should increase our foreign aid budget to the level of 0.7% of GDP urged by the UN".

Some things, one just knows, doesn't one?

I just wanted to add, on that bit about the Cumbrian floods. Was international assistance needed?

Here in North America, we give aid back and forth across the border all the time, in the form of people and equipment and expertise.

It took a long while for %$#@ George Bush to allow this when New Orleans was hit, but eventually the Canadian military was there doing search and rescue and purifying water, and in the meantime, the state of Louisiana had approached the province of British Columbia directly (or maybe it was city-to-city, I forget), and had teams of rescue workers go down. Canadians donated to the US Red Cross to help with the efforts, I'm sure.

When there are forest fires on the west coast, teams help across the border. When blackouts and ice storms hit on the eastern continent, teams help across the border.

We don't jump in with aid to individuals, like for flooded homes, but there is certainly mutual assistance to deal with disasters.

Eeyore13 -- this is about what we in Canada call "matching grants"?

I'm used to discussion boards where people start out posting a link to the news item they're discussing and quoting it, and here I have to go hunting! In this case I couldn't find anything.

"From April 2011 the Government will be reducing the amount of Gift Aid a charity can claim on donations from UK taxpayers from 28% to 25%"

I understood from this that if a charity gets donations of £1 million, the government will match it with £250,000.

This is on top of tax deductions or credits that individuals get for charitable donations, I assume. A tax deduction is a form of matching grant. You make the donation, the government loses the revenue it would get from the tax on the money you donate.

We do have matching grants here. I'm just having a bit of trouble figuring out what the rates are.

One thing that can be called a positive factor about matching grants (including tax deductions) is that individuals decide what cause to support (as long as it has official charitable status) and the public grant follows that choice. But it can leave some worthy causes underfunded. If we all give our donations to the cat shelter, the homeless shelter still needs money.

I am finding it impossible to find info about matching grants. I know that for things like the Haiti earthquake and the tsunami and so on, the government will announce a period of one or two months when it will match all donations to certain organizations, dollar for dollar.

I found something about provincial governments. Alberta is filthy rich from oil revenues, remember.

http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=496ab95d-1790-41aa-8245-a0ed1c3cb674&sponsor=

"Alberta is one of four provinces that matches the dollars raised by local organizations for small-scale, international aid projects. So the club's funding was doubled, thanks to Wild Rose Foundation grants from lottery revenues. This year, the Uganda program got a $10,000 matching grant.

The Wild Rose Foundation distributes $1.4 million of its annual $8-million budget for international development. That compares favourably to $385,000 in matching grants from the Saskatchewan government and about $750,000 from the Manitoba government."

(Keeping in mind that Alberta has a much larger population ...)

I guess federal matching grants are on a project basis.

I do know that the way of getting tax advantages for charitable donations changed some years ago. You used to be able to deduct the full amount of charitable donations from your taxable income. It's a lot less now.

But apparently studies show that only about half of the receipts issued by charities get used at tax time anyway!

That doesn't answer very well, does it ... But I'm not sure of the mechanics of what the British government has just announced, to compare it to.

Lesley hello
what it means i think is with the massive cuts
people wont be able to make the donations
they have given in the past and its a shame

Hi Joy :)

Yes 3% will make a big difference to the charities at a time that people are struggling. The shortfall will make a difference to charities that help in this country and those that help abroad.

I'm not sure what is meant by this comment:

"if we continue with so much foreign aid our own charities will suffer"

If Auntie Joan has always supported the RNIB and Uncle Peter supports RNLI, what difference will the government granting foreign aid make to their donations?

If I support a malaria charity for the past few years and have never supported any UK charities, why would the government giving foreign aid make a difference to whom I give my money to?

Am I missing something?

A massive difference for a charity I support.
If they receive the same donations in a year with 3% less Gift Aid they expect to lose £25,000.

I tend to agree that whilst the situation is so harsh we do need to look after No1 a bit better.

thats exactly what i was saying JITB thank you

Lesley we are in trouble big trouble

and 3% will make a difference

I think what was trying to be said by Joy was, if we continue with so much foreign aid our own charities will suffer which is a shame, and yes i agree with her.

Sorry Janey if I've duplicated - was reading on my phone earlier and I do tend to skim ;)

I'm probably about to do some duplicating again ;) :

As you say people can decide to give to charities or not and what charities they choose.

I hope people don't neglect foreign charities as I'm sure many countries worldwide are hit by the recession. People abroad are also hit by tragedies in such large scales ie earthquakes, floods etc. that we rarely see,

Even down to Malaria which is a huge killer in many countries, we are fortunate not to suffer from this in our country. Surely that's down to location and luck rather than what someone may or may not have done.

Re the Cumbrian floods, I would be expecting more help from people within this country rather than looking elsewhere. I wouldn't expect help from countries abroad who are struggling to tackle their own problems whilst our country is relatively rich.

Strewth wasn't expecting to come back to this!

The topic is that the UK Govt has decided to cut Gift Aid by 3%.

My concern being how charities who rely on this income will cope with the shortfall & to some degree where these cuts will stop.

Can I ask you Janey-in Canada does the Govt support charities in a similar way or do you have a different system? There are several significant charities local to me that rely totally on donations & sponsership I do worry that they will struggle.

(the delete was me)

How do you know what it means to me????
Are you a mind reader because i havent said anywhere on the internet
what i think it means, so you couldnt have googled it!!!!

I know what it means to you too, JackInTheBox.

As someone I quoted in that other thread said:

"People who say 'Charity begins at home' either don't want to give to charity, or in particular don't want to give to any charities who work in other countries. Saying 'Charity begins at home' doesn't actually mean anything and is just an excuse. ...
Why use excuses? If you don't want to donate to a charity, just don't do it. No need for excuses, if you're in the right about it."

Yup, SRS, that's what I was saying.

When our ancestors lived in a society where most people worked on the land, and then in cities where they were paid starvation wages, they had to have lots of children. And lots of them died.

My mother's father's father was one of 8 children -- that I know of from censuses; who knows how many other Hill births in Cornwall were theirs? ;) Four of them lived to have their own children.

Three likely died of tuberculosis as small children; one did as a young adult. My gr-grfather's first wife and daughter, and a niece, again that I know of, died young of TB.

That, and worse, are how much of the world's population still lives.

None of it was my ancestors' fault.

And my ancestors weren't responsible for the governments that lived off the fat of the land while they were dying -- and the fat of a lot of other people's lands, in the case of the British ruling classes.

Just as none of it is the fault of the children dying of TB and other diseases, or their parents, in Africa or anywhere else today.

And I guess that's just the last word.

"shame the aid we have already given
over the years is not more appreciated"

Shame you're just making stuff up. Again.

Oh, and saying vile things about other human beings. Again.

You have no basis whatsoever for saying that people, other human beings, in this world who receive your foreign aid do not appreciate it.

And your clear insinuation that they do not appreciate it really is nothing more than name calling and stereotyping.

janey i am not nit picking with you
you have your opinions and i will have mine
i have not resorted to name calling or stereotyping
maybe one day just maybe lol
we will find a subject we can agree on
for now my charitable contributions will be for charity's here in Brittan
shame the aid we have already given
over the years is not more appreciated



jack in the box i agree
charity does begin at home well for now it does

I dont need to google anything, i know what it means to me.

I may be wrong but perhaps the reason why people have so many children are similar to the reasons why our ancestors had so many. With child mortality being so high and people dying at earlier ages owing to diseases and other factors, many may choose to have a high number of children in the hope that some may survive long enough to support them when they are old or infirm. I can't imagine that they have the pension system that we all have or the benefit systems when they are unable to work. I do think it is a shame that this government is in effect cutting aid/help to charities at a time when people can't afford to give so much and more help is needed both at home and abroad.

JackInTheBox, whatever your point was -- google that phrase to find out what it really means.


Here, I'll make it easy:

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.asp?wci=thread&tk=1201604


"I feel it is also important that all texts are understood outside the particular religion which 'owns' them. The arguments around interpretation will continue - I know Christians who think 'Charity begins at home' means you should look after only your own nearest and dearest - the rest of the world can go hang."

is not actually what it meant when it was first spoken.