The government has abandoned a working group to investigate the potential to lifetime legacies, but sector groups are pressing ahead with a proposal for the Treasury to consider their introduction.

The working group, set up by the Charities Aid Foundation and HM Treasury in autumn 2008, had only met infrequently and with limited results before the change of government. But momentum appears to have finallly stalled as the group's last meeting due in March still has not taken place.

However, the European Association for Philanthropy and Giving is working with CAF and the Charity Tax Group to develop a proposal for HM Treasury, destined to hit desks before the end of the year, on the subject of lifetime legacies.

Sue Daniels, director of the EAPG, told Civil Society the proposal will be in the same vein as those that have preceded it, but that conditions were now better.

“The timing is right and people are more receptive,” she said.

CAF is also working informally with celebrity QC Geoffrey Robertson and Lord Best, chari of the Giving Forum, on the topic.

There are also suggestions that Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt is in favour of introducing lifetime legacies, and the consensus at a roundtable held late last month by the EAPG was that in a climate of statutory cuts and encouraging philanthropy, the government may have a renewed appetite for reform of the giving mechanisms around higher-end philanthropy.