MP calls for action on VAT and National Insurance

Howard Lake | 27 January 2003 | News

• Tagged with:
• finance

Bob Russell MP has launched a campaign to help charities to

get compensation for the Value Added Tax (VAT) they cannot recover and the increased National Insurance contributions they will be facing from April 2003.

Irrecoverable VAT is estimated to cost the charity sector more than £400 million per year, and it is estimated that the impact of the coming increases in National Insurance will cost the sector more than £50 million per year.

Mr Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has tabled a Parliamentary Early Day Motion (EDM) calling on the Government “to introduce measures to reduce or remove this crippling financial burden on charities.” He is also a Member of the Home Affairs Select Committee.

He said that “The more services charities provide, the more they lose in irrecoverable VAT. The forthcoming increase in National Insurance will put even further pressure on the sector and will make it more difficult for charities to achieve their objectives and meet the government’s goals for

improvements in public services.”

Les Jones OBE, Deputy Chairman of the Charity Finance Directors Group (CFDG), welcome the initiative. He said: “We are delighted that MPs are raising the charity sector’s concerns about the increasing tax we are facing. We will be encouraging CFDG members to write to their own MP to ask them for their support of this important parliamentary motion.”

Early Day Motion (EDM) 552 calls for the government to “as a priority, to introduce measures to reduce or remove this crippling financial burden on charities.”

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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.