{"id":333,"date":"2013-02-07T11:53:50","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T10:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/?p=333"},"modified":"2013-02-07T11:53:50","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T10:53:50","slug":"a-victory-that-needs-to-be-front-page-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/2013\/02\/07\/a-victory-that-needs-to-be-front-page-news\/","title":{"rendered":"A victory that needs to be front page news"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/tto\/money\/tax\/article3673341.ece\">front page of The Times<\/a> made many people&#8217;s hearts sink &#8211; including mine.<\/p>\n<p>The Times had exposed a scam that takes advantage of charity tax relief to enable unscrupulous individuals to claim millions of pounds without actually making any meaningful contribution to charitable activity.<\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, some made the link between this revelation and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-politics-18278253\">last year&#8217;s Budget which attempted to cap charity tax reliefs<\/a>. Along with many others, I had argued at the time that it was mathematically impossible to enrich oneself by donating, despite widespread public suspicions that tax avoidance was a major motive behind philanthropy.<\/p>\n<p>So thank god for the news, <a href=\"http:\/\/m.thirdsector.co.uk\/article\/1169812\/Payments-circular-Gift-Aid-mechanisms-will-not-made-HMRC-2010?bulletin=third_sector_daily_bulletin\">reported in Third Sector<\/a>, that the attempt to defraud the tax system and damage the image of philanthropy has failed.<\/p>\n<p>But it is still an awful shame that this story was not nipped in the bud the moment it surfaced. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.charitycommission.gov.uk\/RSS\/News\/pr_cup_trust.aspx\">The Charity Commission&#8217;s statement<\/a> that it was<em> &#8220;not comfortable&#8221;<\/em> with the set up is hardly the kind of firm regulation we need to ensure public confidence in giving and philanthropy.<\/p>\n<p>I hope the Times gives equal, front-page coverage to the news that this scam has failed &#8211; otherwise our chances of growing a stronger culture of philanthropy in the UK will become that bit more remote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week&#8217;s front page of The Times made many people&#8217;s hearts sink &#8211; including mine. The Times had exposed a scam that takes advantage of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/2013\/02\/07\/a-victory-that-needs-to-be-front-page-news\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[79],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions\/336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}