Re: facilitating donations
On Wed, 2002-01-30 at 21:07, martin f krafft wrote:
> this is basically how germany handles it. but i do see a problem
> (actually, Joey told me) - this does not work for people who want to
> deduct their donations from taxes, because there isn't a charitable
> organization to receive and write receipts for the donations.
> moreover, you have to be a charitable organization to be able to
> receive donations, or else you'll be in trouble for receiving money
> that you don't pay taxes for.
I don't think it should be a big deal to set up national chapters of SPI
that collect donations and just forward them to the US. I would expect
these to qualify as charitable bodies in most countries.
As far as the UK is concerned, domestic charities can reclaim basic-rate
tax on donations so long as the donor has signed a Gift Aid declaration.
(If the donor pays higher-rate tax he can claim relief on the difference
between basic and higher rates; alternatively you can have your employer
make charity donations directly from your gross salary in which case no
tax is payable.) Donations to overseas charities don't qualify for any
tax relief at all which, together with the administration fees involved
in sending money to the US, makes giving to SPI a fairly inefficient
business at the moment.
p.
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