# Irrecoverable VAT campaign uses Number 10 petition site

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/03/01/irrecoverable-vat-campaign-uses-number-10-petition-site/
- Published: 2007-03-01T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Given how much the UK public can get excited about road pricing, perhaps they can
also get equally excited about stopping £400 million of their donations going each
year to pay charities’ VAT. Hence the establishment of another petition using the
government’s petition website.

Charities have campaigned for years to overturn the irrecoverable VAT that they 
pay. Indeed, many argue it is a particular problem because the more active a charity
is in providing services, the more VAT it is likely to pay.

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Local authorities and commercial companies can recover the VAT that they pay, but
charities cannot. The Government has recognised the problem but says that it cannot
do anything about it because of the cost. As a result, charities continue to pay
between £400 and £500 million a year in VAT, money which could otherwise be diverted
to charitable activities.

The petition to the Prime Minister to “to Stop making charities pay VAT” (sic) has
been set up by “Damien”. It’s not quite as detailed as those arguments put forward
by voluntary sector organisations and umbrella organisations. The petitioner explains:“
This is an added expense for groups that are already financially stretched to their
limits. Give charities a break. The PM knows how valuable the work of charities 
are and the pressure they relieve on welfare state services.”

Regrettably it makes no reference to the enormous VAT sums paid by charities or 
the fact that charities do not enjoy the same benefits as public and private companies
in terms of recovering this VAT.

Still, the campaign is getting some coverage in the voluntary sector so one might
as well support it in order to exploit any opportunity to address this issue. UK
Fundraising’s Howard Lake has added his name to it.

Charity Finance magazine reports that RNIB chief executive Lesley-Anne Alexander
and World Emergency Relief’s UK director of operations Alex Haxton were among the
first to sign up, and that Helen Donoghue, head of the Charities Tax Reform Group,“
has been circulating the email to contacts in the sector and encouraging them to
sign”.

The road tax petition accrued 1,791,942 signatures by the time it closed on 20 February
2007. So far the expenditure of nearly half a billion pounds by charities has engaged
2,441 signatories. The petition closes on 21 June 2007.