Foundation attacks 'unfair' tax regime
Howard Lake | 5 February 2008 | News
The Community Foundation for Ireland, which makes grants and promotes philanthropy, has expressed its disappointment that no move was made in the January 2008 Finance Bill to improve the tax regime for major charitable giving in Ireland.
The Foundation said that this sets Ireland apart from many developed countries where philanthropy is encouraged through the national tax system. For organisations seeking significant donations, the current tax laws are providing a major disincentive for making very large gifts, the Foundation says.
In the Finance Bill 2006, Minister Cowen introduced a new Section 485C which placed a restriction on the use of tax relief schemes by high income earners. Unfortunately, said the Foundation, he included the tax relief scheme on donations in the list of tax relief schemes covered by this section.
Individuals with income in excess of €250,000 who have specified tax reliefs available to them are now restricted in the amount of tax relief they can claim each year. The Foundation says the donation scheme should not be compared to a property based tax relief where the taxpayer owns the property and gets the tax relief.
The Foundation is calling for this cap to be removed because it believes it will slow down the move to establish foundations in Ireland and the making of ‘7 figure + super gifts’. Modest changes to the system are necessary it says as it is also patently unfair to those most deserving – not the philanthropists, but those they support.
www.communityfoundation.ie
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.