British Business Responsible for Charities Lost Millions
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GBP900 Million Would pay for the Entire Work of Barnardo’s or the British Red Cross for 4.5 years
The extra cost? Nothing. The simple answer is Workplace Giving, a twenty year old, tax efficient scheme that hasn’t taken off as it should as a result of nothing more than business apathy and lack of awareness.
The story over the pond is very different; over 30% of employees give to charity through their pay in the US. In the UK that figure is only 2.6%.
Britain has similar tax benefits to the US for Workplace Giving but UK registered charities still lose out on a potential of GBP900 million(x) every year because people do not give in a tax efficient way. All Workplace Giving is automatically tax efficient but UK registered charities are missing out because employers aren’t introducing and effectively communicating the scheme. According to Lord Joffe, former head of Oxfam, “British companies seldom actively promote Workplace Giving among their staff. In America, Workplace Giving is not only promoted, it’s expected.”
The situation in the UK has to change, according to MP Anne Snelgrove, who is launching a campaign at the House of Commons today with the support of entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne. Anne is calling on business leaders to become Geared for Giving http://www.gearedforgiving.com and introduce, promote and re-launch dormant Workplace Giving schemes with the aim of giving an extra 1 million employees access to the scheme in the next year.
Workplace Giving is a straightforward scheme which allows your favourite charity to receive all the tax payable on your donation if it goes through the payroll. The scheme is particularly tax efficient for a higher rate tax payer, where a donation made via Workplace Giving costing them GBP60 could be increased to GBP100 for the charity.
Most importantly this means your chosen charity can plan longer term giving. According to Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK, “Workplace Giving is an extremely easy and tax effective way for people to give to charities. Last year the income generated for Cancer Research UK through the scheme amounted to GBP3.7 million - this could cover the annual running costs of four of the laboratories at our flagship London Research Institute. This will pave the way for new, more effective ways of preventing, diagnosing and treating cancer.”
Source: Geared for Giving
[...] Shanghai Family Finance wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt GBP900 Million Would pay for the Entire Work of Barnardo’s or the British Red Cross for 4.5 years The extra cost? Nothing. The simple answer is Workplace Giving, a twenty year old, tax efficient scheme that hasn’t taken off as it should as a result of nothing more than business apathy and lack of awareness. The story over the pond is very different; over 30% of employees give to charity through their pay in the US. In the UK that figure is only 2.6%. Britain has similar tax benefits to the U [...]