CFG blog

Eva Abeles and Melora Jezierska provide an update on the current status of FATCA legislation and its implications for the charity sector It is fair to say that FATCA (the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) has not been on the charity world’s radar as it is, after all, a piece of US tax legislation.  However, charities operating internationally should be aware of FATCA to ensure they are not inadvertently caught by the rules.  What is FATCA? FATCA is extra-territorial US legislation which seeks to combat US tax evasion in a rather heavy-handed manner.  It requires foreign financial institutions (‘FFIs’), e.g. banks, [...]

Last month, the start of a new tax year, was an unexpectedly busy one for charities, with procedural changes afoot to Gift Aid claims and PAYE, and the introduction of the new Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme. Amidst this noise, a tax milestone worthy of comment almost passed us unnoticed; VAT celebrated its 40 birthday!  Given the sector’s long-standing adversarial relationship with it, it’s a timely reminder of  the VAT anomalies charities face even after 40 years. VAT has always been a hugely controversial area for charities – and is possibly the finest example of where the failure to account [...]

It is always dangerous for me to describe what I plan to say in a speech ahead of delivering it. As my father once said to me ‘I don’t know what I think until I hear myself say it’. When I was asked to speak at the CFG conference, the organisers referred to a blog post I had written on farming. In this I had argued that interest groups – like the farming lobby – often face a choice between three types of narrative: ‘we’re facing crisis’; ‘we’re being faced with a crucial/terrible choice’; or ‘we are the best answer [...]

This week sees the release of our latest People and Pay Survey (formerly Salary Survey), which tracks trends in salaries, recruitment and wider employment issues in charity finance teams. This year we revamped the survey to explore some new and exciting areas where we think important changes may be occurring, and renamed it to reflect its wider remit. So what does the survey tell us about charity finance professionals in 2013, and what can charities learn from this? 1. They have a wide range of responsibilities This year’s survey enabled us, for the first time, to put figures to a [...]

Although written over half a century ago, C. Northcote Parkinson’s humorous observations in Parkinson’s Law * are as relevant now as when they were first published. Here we learn such things as the Science of Committology and the fact that the most important deciding factor in how the voting at a meeting will go is not the eloquence of the arguments, but the seating plan. However, it is the chapter on High Finance, where we are first introduced to the Law of Triviality (the time spent on any item of the agenda will be inversely proportional to the sum involved) [...]

CFG’s IT Conference 2013 was held at Inmarsat in Old Street on 21st March. Topics covered included: The Cloud, Outsourcing, Cyber-risk, CRM initiatives and Working Remotely. 139 delegates networked with exhibitors on 15 stands including Eduserv and ThankQ. Professor Nigel Shadbolt, from the University of Southampton, gave the Opening Plenary on the challenges of Open Data – the publication of information that organisations, governments and charities hold. When we interviewed him he explained that the importance of publishing it in a way that has three fundamental features: “it is on the web; it is available to re-use for anybody with [...]

As we toured the country last week, meeting over 200 charities to discuss Budget 2013, we were met by experts and charities that were, on the whole, underwhelmed by the contents of the red box. Top-line concerns stemmed from the macro-economic outlook, with the overarching narrative continuing to be one of austerity and restrained growth.  Fiscal neutrality, government cuts, erosion of real wages, low interest rates, variable inflation, and a shift to unconventional monetary policy tools – unfamiliar concepts five years ago – are now increasingly embedded as part of the ‘new normal’ as the country pushes forward with Plan [...]

Tomorrow the Chancellor has the unenviable task of delivering the budget.  It’s not just the contents of the infamous red box that will be revealed at 12.30, we’ll also hear the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) prognosis for the economy and the public finances – and their judgement about whether the Government is on course to meet its medium-term fiscal objective. The OBR is expected to further downgrade growth forecasts and a triple-dip recession is a high possibility. With the Chancellor’s justification for his economic programme so far – that it would enable us to keep our stellar AAA credit [...]

The question of why people give is much-debated amongst those with an interest in charity funding – is it intrinsic altruism, a connection to a cause, a sense of duty? While personal experience and past successes are often the basis of fundraising decisions, there’s nothing like evidence and insight to provide comfort that a judgement is right. As charities struggle financially, understanding and tapping into people’s reasons for giving, particularly of those who can most afford to do so, can ensure continuity of service to those beneficiaries most in need.  That’s why last week’s research by New Philanthropy Capital into [...]

The start of the new tax year will bring with it significant changes to the way PAYE is administered. The big question for employers is – have you been paying attention? Susan Ball, director of the Employers Advisory Group at national tax, audit and advisory firm Crowe Clark Whitehill runs through the changes coming under Real Time Information (RTI) PAYE reporting system.   HMRC wrote to all employers in early 2013 to let them know their RTI migration date. For most this is likely to be the next payment run after 06 April 2013.  What is RTI? RTI is more [...]