The vice-chair of the Charity Tax Group has expressed concern over increasing scrutiny of the tax reliefs awarded to different charities.
Speaking at CTG’s annual conference last week, Richard Bray said all charities should be awarded the same tax reliefs and said he was concerned about a public perception of “first and second-class charities”.
He said: “People will look at a feeling that certain charity reliefs shouldn’t be available to an organisation and therefore say there should not be charity tax reliefs. That is not really where we should be starting from.
“Where we start from is where you have an entity that has decided to be a charity, it should then be entitled to those tax reliefs.
“It is a completely separate question of what should be a charity. Our concern is that we might be moving into a world where you might refer to first and second-class charities.”
‘Rallying cry’
Bray said it was important for charities to report their social impact in order to justify the benefits they receive from their charitable status.
He said: “One of the things that is also a rallying cry for us as a sector is that we must never assume that 'we are charities, therefore be nice to us'.
“What we have to do is be continually justifying and explaining the benefit that we bring to wider society as a whole and why those tax reliefs are a good investment for our society.”
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