Charity

I have said this before and I will keep on saying this until my voice is hoarse.  We are brilliant when it comes to charity.  No seriously you are amazing, generous people.  A major disaster, emergency appeal or an annual fund raising appeal like Children In Need and you all come running.  There is a community spirit and we don't need politicians to make it happen.  I will say it again you are all amazing! Even my employer (who will remain nameless) gets in on the action.  They make me seriously proud of them at times with the things they do.  Feeling proud of yourself yet? You should be!

So with all of the sheer awesomeness that is going on my question to everyone is why are we being let down by those who govern us?  I firmly believe that our government is letting the side down.  I know that they give billions of our taxes away in aid and I will come back to that in a moment.  I am talking about making easier to support charities.  

Companies can write off charitable donations against tax.  Individuals who make major donations to charity can do a similar thing. What about people like you and I?  Why not do a similar thing for us?  I know that we can gift aid our donations but what I am talking about is more than this.  How about any donations over £100 to a maximum of £1000 can be claimed against the personal allowance in the next tax period.  So if a person donates £500 to a charity then their personal allowance increases by a similar amount next year.  Combine this with gift aid everyone is on to a winner.

I distinctly remember reading in the news about the government looking at the possibility of people being able to donate via cashpoints. What happened to that?  You can top up mobile phones via cashpoints so why not donate money?  The government seems to be hyper keen on the cuts but still hasn't made it any easier for people to donate. Lets be honest as a result of some very savage cuts, charities need our help and support more than ever. 

Finally and possibly the most controversial point.  I believe the government needs to look very hard (in which I mean a huge amount more than they claim they are doing)  at aid and where it is going.  We can't afford to be as generous as we used to be with our money.  There are nations and people that desperately  need our assistance and this should be given without delay but within our means.  I do however question giving massive amount of aid to nuclear armed countries.  Something isn't quite right when a country can afford to maintain and operate a nuclear arsenal but can't afford to feed or educate its population. I am told that aid is given with stipulations but that isn't the point when you have people in your own country in dire need and charities are loosing funding left, right and centre.

I am calling on the government to refocus its priorities with regards to aid, to take more urgent steps to redress the imbalance with funding for charities and to make it easier for everyone to support charities.