CHARIITES BILL
Proposed amendments
New clause 30
Page 30 line 1: Insert new clause 30:
“30 After section 75E of the 1993 Act insert –
‘75F Power for charities to make anonymous donations
Any charitable institution may subject as provided in subsection (2) resolve that any one or more donations made by it shall be made on terms that the name of the donor charity shall not be disclosed to the recipient nor the fact that the donor charity has made such gift whether through the accounts of the charity or otherwise to any other person save the Charity Commissioners the Commissioners of Inland Revenue and if so required the Attorney-General.
The making of any such donation shall be a matter which if not otherwise reported to the Charity Commission shall be required to be the subject of a report under section 44(a) or section 68A of this Act and whether or not so reported the Charity Commission shall have power at any time by notice in writing to the trustees to require any charitable institution to make full disclosure of all such donations made within a period of three years preceding the date of such notice to the Commission and to require such further disclosure of any or all of such donations as the Commission shall reasonably determine.”
Page 85 line 13
Add:
Column 1
“Determination of the Commission under section 75F(2) of this Act to require trustees to make disclosure of a donation otherwise sought to be made without disclosure otherwise than as referred to in section 75F(1).”
Column 2
“The persons are
the charity trustees of the charity to which the determination relates
(if a body corporate) the institution itself”
Column 3
“Power to quash the determination and (if appropriate) remit the matter to the Commission with such directions as the Tribunal may think fit.”
Speaking notes
The purpose of these amendments is self-explanatory. No charity can properly seek to have its operations kept under a cloak of secrecy from its regulator. The fact remains that many a charity donor will wish to hide the source of its donations from donees, which will require both an element of non-disclosure of the source so far as the donee is concerned and the fact of the gift in the accounts (which will simply have to be referred to under some amorphous heading such as “other charitable expenditure”).
The reason for such anonymity is simple: doing good by stealth has always been a form of philanthropy which has the highest merit because it can be seen to be done for the good of the donee without the donor trying to take any credit, while in some cases the donor may wish to protect itself against the possibility that a substantially publicised donation may attract an excessive workload for the trustees in terms of applications for donations from other donees who think that they might have a claim for similar bounty. It is no more than a statement of fact that many donors prefer their donations not to be too readily traceable; the use of anonymous names for charitable donor foundations is a commonplace, but of course all to often the anonymity originally sought to be achieved is lost as the donor foundation becomes well known and the result is that those otherwise inclined to make charitable gifts through foundations may, if denied the chance of anonymity, be tempted to limit their bounty to one off gifts out of income through the medium of specially created anonymised CAF accounts or similar. This is not in the interests of charity. So long as there is a suitable mechanism for making sure that the anonymous gift cannot be shielded from disclosure to the Charity Commission and the Inland Revenue, and the Commission has suitable powers to require disclosure if they think fit, charities ought to be at liberty to seek to give anonymously.
