The Tax Administration and Maintenance Day (known as TAM) is an opportunity for the Government to announce technical tax policy proposals that aim to “make the tax system fairer and tackle non-compliance”.  Unlike last year, only a few proposals were announced and only was one of interest to charities: on the VAT Treatment of Charitable Donations.

Following representations from a range of organisations, including CTG, the Government has said that:

“In order to encourage charitable giving the government will consult on introducing a targeted VAT relief for low value goods which businesses donate to charities for the charities to give away free of charge to people in need. The consultation will be launched later this year.”

It is encouraging that the Government has listened to the representations from CTG and others and has announced this consultation. CTG hopes that the consultation will be conducted speedily and that a targeted relief can be introduced quickly to help address the significant issues facing many people in need.

We had been expecting some follow-up from last year’s consultation on charity tax compliance measures; however, we understand that HMRC is still working on the outputs from that consultation and will be announcing its response in due course.

You can view the full summary of proposals from this year’s announcements here.