1982

• VAT Reform Group formed to campaign to change VAT regulations – eight founder charities
• Commons Early Day Motion on charities and VAT attracts the support of 260 MPs
• First open meeting attracts over 200 charities
• Petition presented to 10 Downing Street with hundreds of thousands of signatures calling for VAT relief for charities working with disabled people

1983

• High profile press campaigns include:
  • sending the Chancellor a ‘VATenline’ on 14 February: author and sailor Clare Francis and John Hannam MP presented a heart-shaped cheque to the Chancellor on Valentine’s day for £7m – showing the annual VAT bill for the members of the group
  • giving the Chancellor a giant twelve page card showing what charities gave the Treasury on each day of Christmas
• The VAT Reform Group becomes the Charities’ VAT Reform Group (CVRG) as the number of members grows
• Commons Early Day Motion calling for VAT relief for charities secures support of over 350 MPs

1984

• The campaign identifies the best solution for service-providing charities: the extension of s20 of the VAT Act to cover charities as well as local authorities and other bodies (now s33 of the 1994 VAT Act)
• Sir Bob Geldof persuades the Government to refund the VAT on the Band Aid single – and supports the group’s campaign for wider VAT relief for charities

1985

• Group undertakes first detailed survey of the tax position of charities

1986

• Rapid growth in the group’s membership
• Zero-rating secured for:
  • medical research equipment – worth over a million pounds a year to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now CRUK)
  • charity advertising
  • medicinal products (for humans and animals) supplied to a charity (worth £millions a year to PDSA)
  • welfare vehicles (including car tax)
  • lifts and alarms
  • sound-recording equipment for charities working with blind people
• Payroll Giving introduced – CVRG involved in discussions on the design of the scheme
• CVRG involved in successful lobbying for extension of single gift tax relief by companies (now company Gift Aid)

1987

• As members become more concerned about wider tax issues and CVRG is increasingly consulted by other agencies of Government, especially the Charity Commission, the group becomes the Charities’ VAT and Tax Reform Group (CVTRG)
• Further measures improving the 1986 concessions introduced
• Peter Jenkins, then Head of Indirect Tax at Ernst & Young, becomes consultant to the group

1988

• As the first hints of the extent of the EU’s VAT harmonisation agenda emerges, CVTRG is involved in intense lobbying and awareness raising about threats to charities, especially on the need to retain the UK’s zero-rates.
• The campaign catches the eye of the celebrated writer and cartoonist, Barry Fantoni, who captures the issue in a Times cartoon
• Successful campaigning with key members charities to protect the VAT zero rate for donated goods – worth £70 million a year in 1988
• Barry Gifford (RNIB) becomes Chairman

1989

• VAT zero-rate for construction of charity buildings protected – worth £125 million a year at the time
• VAT relief secured for charity fund-raising events and for medical sterilising equipment
• CVTRG becomes the Charities’ Tax Reform Group (CTRG)