Tax incentives for social good

by TrustLaw
Wednesday, 3 September 2014 15:11 GMT

The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) works to motivate society to give more effectively. CAF does this by helping people and businesses support the causes they care about, and by providing financial services designed for the charitable sector. Some of their recent campaigns include 'Give it Back George' in 2012, which campaigned for the UK government to drop its planned cap on tax deductions on charitable donations; and 'Back Britain's Charities'.

CAF sought legal assistance to understand and compare the efficacy of tax incentives available for charitable giving in the world’s major and growing economies. Through TrustLaw, CAF received pro bono support from legal teams at GE, DLA Piper, Grünkorn & Partner (Vietman), and Doulah & Doulah (Bangladesh). The lawyers researched laws and policies on the presence, nature and accessibility of tax incentives for charitable donations in key selected nations.

“The legal research will enable us to compare different tax jurisdictions, and in combination with our existing data on giving, allow us to build recommendations for governments on the efficacy of different approaches to tax policy,” said Adam Pickering, International Policy Manager at CAF.

“This work would have been simply impossible without pro bono legal support,” added Adam. “Moreover, advocacy efforts based on this research could have a transformative impact on the resourcing of civil society organisations, which in turn could have immeasurable benefits for society.

The research will also be used as supporting evidence for a global campaign to create a culture of philanthropy, which was launched at the Nexus Global Youth Summit at the United Nations headquarters in July 2014.

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This project has been nominated for the 2014 TrustLaw Collaboration Award. Learn more about the TrustLaw Awards. 


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