The way that charities claim Gift Aid is about to change and it appears that there is some five months left to get things in place before this happens (September 2013). Hopefully those of us Anglicans will have some sort of diocesan support and guidance regarding this but there is still work to be done to ensure that all is in place regardless.
One of the biggest changes will be the provision of an online facility for claiming Gift Aid (bringing an end to paper systems and to many of the HMRC staff who do the work with it too I assume) but as always with technological solutions there are changes and challenges of the paper and organisation kind to be engaged with and sorted out!
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) have issued the following advice:
• Ensure the right people in their charity know about the changes and when they will happen.
• Read HMRC's guidance on Charities Online available on the HMRC website.
• Make sure you support your Treasurer and involve IT literate members to support and help decide which of three new options they will use:
Online claim form,
Database generated claim, or
Paper claim.
• Check which of the following steps you should take:
Register with the Government Gateway
Download and start using the standard HMRC spreadsheets
Speak to software suppliers or internal software development teams
Order the new paper forms from HMRC Charities (0845 302 0203
Get your Gift Aid claims up to date and check that the Gift Aid declarations remain valid.
• Ensure you are collecting all of the required information for a valid Gift Aid claim including a donor's postcode.
• Make sure your Gift Aid processes are robust as HMRC will be better equipped to check the accuracy of all and any Gift Aid claims.
• Check if you can benefit from the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme.
Not original information, but hopefully valid and useful for all those clergy, church councils and Treasurers out there.
Pax
Showing posts with label finances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label finances. Show all posts
Friday, 26 April 2013
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
But the Church is rich! (Part III)
The Church (of England) costs around £1,000M to keep the doors of our churches (13,000 of them) and cathedrals (43) open. The pretty graph below gives an idea of how the money comes in:
From it we can see that 21% comes from investments,
16% from Fees (Baptism, Wedding and Funerals), and
The rest (excluding 'other') pretty much comes from within (and the 'tax recovered' is a component of giving too!).
So - the reality is that we do have money but we aren't rich and the money we generate from it means we need to raise around £210m less from within (i.e. the members and churchgoers). The central organisation is therefore subsidising the operation leaving church members with their Parish Share to meet the rest.
That said, Parish Share is no small amount as can be seen with our 'church in a phone box and its need to find £65 every day of the year to pay it (and that's without running expenses) but it would be £100 without the 'wealth!'.
And what the communities we serve get is extremely good value for money and those who are Church (meaning CofE for this example) should be proud of what we are in the main doing and being.
Pax
ps. If you are a church member (and denomination or group) why not GiftAid your giving and maximise the power of your giving?
From it we can see that 21% comes from investments,
16% from Fees (Baptism, Wedding and Funerals), and
The rest (excluding 'other') pretty much comes from within (and the 'tax recovered' is a component of giving too!).
So - the reality is that we do have money but we aren't rich and the money we generate from it means we need to raise around £210m less from within (i.e. the members and churchgoers). The central organisation is therefore subsidising the operation leaving church members with their Parish Share to meet the rest.
That said, Parish Share is no small amount as can be seen with our 'church in a phone box and its need to find £65 every day of the year to pay it (and that's without running expenses) but it would be £100 without the 'wealth!'.
And what the communities we serve get is extremely good value for money and those who are Church (meaning CofE for this example) should be proud of what we are in the main doing and being.
Pax
ps. If you are a church member (and denomination or group) why not GiftAid your giving and maximise the power of your giving?
But the Church is rich! (Part Two)
So my upbringing led me to believe that the Church of England was not only rolling in money but that aside from the cash they took from the 'poor' (i.e. those who filled the pews on a Sunday) but that they owned a greater part of Central London and made money from the excesses and vices that filled those areas. This was something that was just there, it didn't make me antagonistic and it didn't make we feel good about them, it was just as it was for 'The Church' and all the others who had loads of money!
Oddly, I remember as child newspaper headlines about 'selling the family silver'* and my Dad telling me about the way that having property, possessions and money meant that you could always have access to money. The very act of 'having things' meant that you could make money apparently. This sounded odd to a ten year old and so I asked the Father how this could be and received a lecture on interest on money deposited and case to be made from property rented and how the only things in life that could be trusted were gold, property and things that gained in worth for these were the things that just kept on giving. Selling them meant a short-term increase in what you had and covered the fact that once this was gone, you had much less! This was what 'selling the family silver' was all about.
So I learned that where it was possible, prudent people (and organisations like 'The Church') would accrue property, land, things and of course, money, and these would ensure that there was always money to pay the bills and live your life. I also learned that having lots of numbers behind a pound sign meant you were rich but that being rich didn't mean that you had money, a strange conundrum indeed! If an organisation or individual is 'rich' then they can spend and live as if they are rich (and then be poor) or can live comfortably off of what they have and continue to do so (with the odd excess I'm sure) ad infinitum. This is where the Church of England should be!
Yes it has money and lived off of its property, land and stuff for a long time but sadly those who invested and were supposed to make money for the body haven't always done such a stand-up job of the task and so money (income and owned) has been lost. Some of this has been recouped because of the land owned and other things but the reality is still that whatever the church owns is there to be a source of income and should be helping to keep us (the CofE) afloat. (A bit of fact: Lots of Central London is owned by the Duke of Westminster, the Queen, the Earl of Cadogan and Paul Raymond!)
We couldn't live on the money that comes in through offerings and donations and so the having stuff element is an important factor in terms of keeping the light on. The same was, and is, true when it came to St Paul's for even though many comment that, "It's a church, who would pull the electricity on a church?" the answer is simple, "Every energy supplier, tradesman and person who does business with it!" People need to have their bills paid to live and the church is just another customer and if they don't pay they get treated the same way as every other customer who doesn't pay. It's ironic that those who don't see the Church as special suddenly think that by being 'Church' it is absolved of the moral and contractual obligations before it - not so.
The bottom line (honestly) is this:
The Church might have money, land and possessions and it is these that, invested and managed wisely, underpins and provides the money needed to keep being the real 'Big Society' and keep our lights on.
Pax
* Ironically these were to do with Alec Douglas-Hume who many years later accused Margaret Thatcher of exactly the same thing!
ps. Hopefully this explains why 'being church' isn't the negative that some would seek to make it and helps to lay the foundations of a defence of Church as an institution. I am assuming the same goes for RC plc but they just have a lot more of everything. I'm sure they use their wealth and stuff to help the poor (don't they?).
Oddly, I remember as child newspaper headlines about 'selling the family silver'* and my Dad telling me about the way that having property, possessions and money meant that you could always have access to money. The very act of 'having things' meant that you could make money apparently. This sounded odd to a ten year old and so I asked the Father how this could be and received a lecture on interest on money deposited and case to be made from property rented and how the only things in life that could be trusted were gold, property and things that gained in worth for these were the things that just kept on giving. Selling them meant a short-term increase in what you had and covered the fact that once this was gone, you had much less! This was what 'selling the family silver' was all about.
So I learned that where it was possible, prudent people (and organisations like 'The Church') would accrue property, land, things and of course, money, and these would ensure that there was always money to pay the bills and live your life. I also learned that having lots of numbers behind a pound sign meant you were rich but that being rich didn't mean that you had money, a strange conundrum indeed! If an organisation or individual is 'rich' then they can spend and live as if they are rich (and then be poor) or can live comfortably off of what they have and continue to do so (with the odd excess I'm sure) ad infinitum. This is where the Church of England should be!
Yes it has money and lived off of its property, land and stuff for a long time but sadly those who invested and were supposed to make money for the body haven't always done such a stand-up job of the task and so money (income and owned) has been lost. Some of this has been recouped because of the land owned and other things but the reality is still that whatever the church owns is there to be a source of income and should be helping to keep us (the CofE) afloat. (A bit of fact: Lots of Central London is owned by the Duke of Westminster, the Queen, the Earl of Cadogan and Paul Raymond!)
We couldn't live on the money that comes in through offerings and donations and so the having stuff element is an important factor in terms of keeping the light on. The same was, and is, true when it came to St Paul's for even though many comment that, "It's a church, who would pull the electricity on a church?" the answer is simple, "Every energy supplier, tradesman and person who does business with it!" People need to have their bills paid to live and the church is just another customer and if they don't pay they get treated the same way as every other customer who doesn't pay. It's ironic that those who don't see the Church as special suddenly think that by being 'Church' it is absolved of the moral and contractual obligations before it - not so.
The bottom line (honestly) is this:
The Church might have money, land and possessions and it is these that, invested and managed wisely, underpins and provides the money needed to keep being the real 'Big Society' and keep our lights on.
Pax
* Ironically these were to do with Alec Douglas-Hume who many years later accused Margaret Thatcher of exactly the same thing!
ps. Hopefully this explains why 'being church' isn't the negative that some would seek to make it and helps to lay the foundations of a defence of Church as an institution. I am assuming the same goes for RC plc but they just have a lot more of everything. I'm sure they use their wealth and stuff to help the poor (don't they?).
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