Speaking as a member of that rapidly dwindling constituency of grey-haired individuals who regularly attend church, I am keenly aware of the financial constraints currently placed upon the Church of Scotland in particular, and no doubt upon every other Christian denomination throughout the nations. The problem may be summarised in a few words: congregations too small, ministers too few, real estate too vast. I suppose it all goes back to the Disruption of 1843, when disgruntled parishioners walked out of one church, and built another one round the corner. There is the gag about the Church of Scotland parishioner who was cast away on a desert island, and lived in solitude for thirty years, until finally rescued by a passing ship. It was noted he had built a church just off the beach. “Yes, I attend every Sunday.” His rescuers had also noted another church on the other side of the island. “Yes, I built that too. But I never darken its doors!”
Ministers don’t like to talk about money. Didn’t Our Lord tell us not to make showy demonstrations of extravagance? If you want to pray, shut yourself up in a closet. If you want to give, do so quietly, like the widow, with a couple of mites. Yet Dunblane Cathedral, or more accurately Dunblane Cathedral, Kilmadock and Blair Drummond Church of Scotland have organised “a review of giving”, quite simply in order to remain financially viable. Frankly, it would be good if everybody could increase their offering by 25%. Now there is a very simple way of doing exactly that. Whatever you give – Gift Aid it. I am invited to fill in a Gift Aid form.
I have never fancied Gift Aid. Isn’t it a kind of tax evasion, or at least tax avoidance? Didn’t Our Lord, again, say “Render under Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s?” But maybe my problem is that I just don’t understand how it works. So I Googled it, and printed out the Wikipedia article:
Gift Aid is a UK tax incentive that enables tax-effective giving by individuals to charities in the United Kingdom.
Well! That’s just not true. Gift Aid allows you to divert a portion of your tax burden to a charity of your personal choice, and is therefore a tax disincentive. A tax disincentive cannot be tax-effective because it lowers the amount of money recouped by HMRC.
How does it work? Suppose you donate £100 to charity. If you claim Gift Aid, HMRC assumes you have actually donated £125, which they will tax at the basic rate of 20%. You are left with 80/100 of £125, which is £100. The charity can claim £25 from HMRC.
Suppose you are being taxed at a higher rate, paying 40% tax on part of your income. The charity claims 20%, and you can also reclaim 20% through your tax return, so that you are only out of pocket by £75. You can only do this if you are a UK tax payer, and you cannot, perhaps through multiple donations to various charities, exceed your tax bill.
Am I missing something? Is it just me, or is this not utter lunacy? We elect a government, for better or for worse, charged with presenting a budget (next on October 30th), largely designed to finance public services such as health, education, social services, defence and so on. Since the election of July 4th we have been gloomed up about the presence of a £22,000,000,000 “black hole” in public finances, and we have been forewarned that the government will have to make some “difficult decisions”. We may have to endure another protracted period of “austerity”.
I hate the use of the word “austerity” in this context. It’s as cold as charity. It first started appearing around 2010, following the financial crash, when the then chancellor George Osborne discovered another fiscal black hole and told us “We are all in this together.” That turned out to be, tragically, a falsehood. In fact, the gap, the gulf, between rich and poor, both here and across the western world generally, has widened, and continues to widen, dramatically. Here, food banks are commonplace, as is begging on the street. It is universally recognised that the National Health Service is “broken” (but don’t worry, Wes Streeting will fix it in a decade using AI and “smart” technology, God help us). The prisons are bursting at the seams. Winston, when he was Home Secretary said that if you want to evaluate the state of wellbeing of a society, visit the prisons. He encouraged prisoners’ access to books. Here and now, even amid life outside, libraries are closing. I could go on.
Would it not be better drastically to simplify the tax system, such that the government knew how much money they have to spend? Of course, there is always the possibility that they will spend the money on something grotesque, like Trident. But that’s democracy for you and, at least up here in Scotland, we should all know what to do about that. So I’m not going to opt for Gift Aid. But I remain sympathetic to Dunblane Cathedral, so I will ensure the same result. I’m accustomed to putting £20 cash into the plate. To use the London East End vernacular, I’ll make it a pony.
jamescalumcampbell 