And what's the postcode of your wigwam?
What is a home address? This is the sort of outwardly simple question that turns into a baffling quagmire when the taxman gets involved.
Earlier this week, the Charity Tax Group annual conference heard that for a charity to claim gift aid, it must have the donor’s home address and postcode.
But what if the donor is a taxpayer but doesn't have a house. What if he or she lives in a shed in the woods? Or in a wigwam? Or in the wagon of a travelling show? What then?
It appears that after much consideration HMRC has thrown up its hands. Official policy seems to be that whatever the donor tells you is their address, that’s their address, and no one’s going to argue.
And this year the revolving door has spat out…
Every year, at the same conference, the chair of the CTG, John Hemming, gets up and delivers a similar speech. The keynote speaker is the economic secretary to the Treasury, he says, but it’s not the same economic secretary as last year, because they’ve been replaced.
In four years they’ve had Justine Greening, Chloe Smith, Sajid Javid and Nicky Morgan.
Morgan didn’t even last long enough in the job to reach the conference; she was promoted just under a month ago, and has been replaced by Andrea Leadsom, who is so new to the brief she probably still thinks charity tax are things you use to put up charity paper on a charity noticeboard.
Fortunately Morgan has decided to hold onto the charity brief, and stepped in to give the keynote speech.
Show us your stick of rhubarb
You may not know it, but tomorrow is World Naked Gardening Day. You can probably guess what you’re invited to do – get out your allotment on your allotment, basically.
A quick search of the web chatter about the day reveals a surprisingly large number of people who wanted to share the fact that for them, every day is naked gardening day – a practice which leaves Society Diary hoping they’ve kept the gorse bushes down to a minimum.
But what has this to do with charity? Well, Horticulture organisation Perennial is asking people to document the occasion by taking selfies of themselves while sky-clad in the garden, and matching it with a text donation.
You can post it on Twitter at #gardeningselfie and text the code GRUB89 to 70070, if you fancy it. Just be sure you trim your verges and keep your hardy annuals under control.
Beware the Hooded Clore
Last week charity workers were once again offered the chance to apply for the Clore leadership programme.
When Society Diary first heard about this, it assumed it was a work experience scheme for apprentice evil geniuses. But it turns out that’s the Claw leadership programme. The Clore programme is a scheme to develop leaders in the social sector.
