The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has accused leading charity Oxfam of using Gift Aid for tax avoidance, in a controversial online article which argued that using Gift Aid to transfer profits between subsidiaries was \u201can ingenious way to escape a tax liability\u201d.<\/p>\n
The right-wing think tank also argued that claiming Gift Aid on donated goods was \u201can artificial structure to gain a tax advantage\u201d.<\/p>\n
The comments come shortly after the controversial body urged the Government to \u201ccrack down on charitable campaigning\u201d and questioned charities\u2019 right to criticise tax havens.<\/p>\n
\u201cBusiness done through tax havens is perfectly legal (except perhaps for occasional errors, which those involved carefully seek to eliminate) and there is nothing wrong with it. But that is not Oxfam\u2019s view; it is a strange philosophy that condemns actions in others whilst busily engaging in them oneself,\u201d said the article, entitled Oxfam on tax avoidance: do as I say, not as I do.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cUse of artificial transfer pricing to gain a tax advantage is the sort of thing that various charities have condemned when used by commercial businesses; it weakens their position to be using the same techniques themselves,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n John Hemming, chair of the Charity Tax Group argued that the IEA\u2019s comparison was \u201cunfair\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cOxfam are using the rules exactly as intended. The same can\u2019t be said of people who use tax havens.<\/p>\n \u201cThe point with both of these arrangements is that they are agreed, sanctioned and promoted by HM Revenue & Customs,<\/p>\n \u201cThe tax guidance for charities contains sections explaining how to do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has accused leading charity Oxfam of using Gift Aid for tax avoidance, in a controversial online article which argued that using Gift Aid to transfer profits between subsidiaries was \u201can ingenious way to escape a tax liability\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1325,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions\/1325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}