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It was decided at a meeting in early February between charities and the Treasury not to press ahead with changes. It follows two years of discussions over options that included removing income tax relief for donors who were higher-rate taxpayers and replacing it with an increase in the tax relief to be claimed directly by charities. The Treasury was deterred from making changes by its reluctance to impose any extra burden on the exchequer, coupled with a fear of creating winners and losers within the charity sector. The Treasury plans to continue regular meetings with the sector in a new forum, which met for the first time on 8th February 2010. Charities believe they are missing out on an important source of funding, as higher rate taxpayers fail to claim an estimated £250m of tax relief – the difference between basic and higher rate tax – or to redirect it to the charities. One option considered by the Treasury was the introduction of a “composite rate” that would allow charities to claim the same refund for higher rate and basic rate donors. A recent survey by the Treasury found that a “small but sizeable minority” of taxpayers – about 14 per cent – preferred a system where they could personally claim tax relief on their donations, possibly because they did not trust the government to give the money to charities. Charitable contributions were sometimes triggered by tax planning at the end of the financial year, and “beating the exchequer” was a big incentive for some donors. But for others, giving tax relief might reduce the “warm glow” they got from giving because it was associated with greed. Under the Gift Aid scheme, charities can reclaim an extra 25% in tax on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. Between 6 April 2008 and 5 April 2011, the government will also give UK charities an extra 3% of all eligible donations. This ‘transitional relief’ does not affect anyones personal tax position.
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Mervyn Pilley has joined Not For Profit Business Services as Chief Executive. A qualified accountant and Chartered Manager, Mervyn has twenty plus years of experience running membership organisations, both as a Board and Committee member and also as a paid CEO/Executive Director. His passion for all things Membership goes back fifty years! He has been involved in two 100 year old membership organisations and has also set up a Trade Association from scratch. Mervyn has dealt with all aspects of membership management and is driven to establish membership management as a profession in its own right. Mervyn said ” I am looking forward to working with the NFPBS team to grow the established business and also help our clients to enhance their organisations”
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Millions of families visit the UK’s iconic visitor attractions during the school holidays, but only 14% of parents think that children’s food at popular attractions is good enough! “Visitor attractions are making life hard for parents who want to enjoy a healthy and happy day out,” said Rob Percival, Soil Association Policy Officer. Over the past few months the Association has worked with parents, to uncover unhealthy pre-packed lunchboxes, dodgy ingredients, and a lack of transparency about food sourcing practices in the UK’s most popular museums, art galleries, zoos, visitor centres, and theme parks, as well as some good food at reasonable prices. Veg or salad options weren’t included in 75% of children’s lunchboxes. Meanwhile 50% of attractions offered lunchboxes including muffins, cakes and sweet treats, but no fresh fruit. These findings come weeks after the Government announced new plans to tackle childhood obesity. Whilst children’s lunchboxes were lacking in healthy options they were often overloaded with sugar, with one at London Zoo packing up to 36g of sugar, about 189% of a child’s daily sugar allowance! Monosodium glutamate (MSG) and meals that included E-numbers linked to negative effects on children’s behaviours featured prominently in others. The British Museum, one of the most popular attractions, declined to confirm whether it uses any British produce or local ingredients. Only a minority declared that they used British ingredients throughout their menus. The Natural History Museum and Brighton Pier scored in joint last place in the league table, whilst the Eden Project scored first place. The full league table is available on, https://www.soilassociation.org/our-campaigns/out-to-lunch-2016/
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