Prove value or lose out, charities warned

Finance | 1 Dec 2007

Charities have been called upon to demonstrate their impact or risk losing their favourable tax privileges. Alex Hardie reports.

Speaking at last month’s VAT and tax roadshow, CFDG chair and corporate services director at the Children’s Society, Charles Nall, urged the sector to “grow up and frame what you do in terms of value not prices”.

“We know we have an impact but we are not clever at demonstrating what it is.” He continued: “Things that have a strange protected status, and can’t demonstrate their value, get axed. There is a political danger that cumulative privilege may become unacceptable as our slice of the economic cake grows.”

Nall argued that as a consequence, increased political scrutiny and a questioning of how charities are taxed, would follow. “Scrutiny is not a threat if we’ve got our house in order but a sign we’re doing things right.”He also said that charities were “sitting on a veritable goldmine of intellectual property rights of national and international interest” that they should exploit.

Directory: Charity Finance Directors' Group (CFDG) | Children's Society
Who's Who: Charles Nall

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