Originally Posted by OldTimer

If the government must cut back on spending how about all overseas aid for a start followed by limiting child benefit to the first two children per couple, stop all tax benefits to charities and religious groups, at present we all have to subsidise charities and religious groups whether we wish to or not. Then stop all benefits to so called single parents , having children is a life style choice , they want them let them keep them.

Stop payments to charities? So when your heart kicks in the British heart foundation should ask their specialist nurses that they fund to stop next door instead? Or when you get prostate cancer Cancer Research shouldnt bother putting you foward for a clinical trial. Whether or not you require the aid of a charity is luck and you should respect that luck instead of trying to exempt yourself from the suffereing of others thinking its never going to touch on you. You dont choose where you are born or when you get ill and no one here is starving so I wouldnt start throwing our humanity overboard to add buoyancy to our economy just yet.

Originally Posted by mightyduck

Originally Posted by OldTimer

If the government must cut back on spending how about all overseas aid for a start followed by limiting child benefit to the first two children per couple, stop all tax benefits to charities and religious groups, at present we all have to subsidise charities and religious groups whether we wish to or not. Then stop all benefits to so called single parents , having children is a life style choice , they want them let them keep them.

Stop payments to charities? So when your heart kicks in the British heart foundation should ask their specialist nurses that they fund to stop next door instead? Or when you get prostate cancer Cancer Research shouldnt bother putting you foward for a clinical trial. Whether or not you require the aid of a charity is luck and you should respect that luck instead of trying to exempt yourself from the suffereing of others thinking its never going to touch on you. You dont choose where you are born or when you get ill and no one here is starving so I wouldnt start throwing our humanity overboard to add buoyancy to our economy just yet.

Hang the f*ck on, I pay national insurance and income tax so that the NH f**kingS can square me away when my heart packs in, how good they are at that is the subject for another thread. Old Timer was not suggesting stopping payments to charities he was suggesting stopping Govt subsidy of charities, a particularly ridiculous situation where charities are being subsidised by HMG to do things that our taxes are supposed to be funding in the 1st place. Eg most Hospitals are also registered charities and collect funds via this to buy eqpt, that should be provided from our taxes in the 1st place.

Originally Posted by OldTimer

If the government must cut back on spending how about all overseas aid for a start followed by limiting child benefit to the first two children per couple, stop all tax benefits to charities and religious groups, at present we all have to subsidise charities and religious groups whether we wish to or not. Then stop all benefits to so called single parents , having children is a life style choice , they want them let them keep them.

Stopping tax benefits to charities would greatly affect the Armed Forces at present.

We are doing quite well with charities such as H4H, this would soon plummet if taxed.

Who would raise money for charity knowing it was helping that cunt Brown out?

Gift aid is the principle tax benefit recieved by charities from the goverment and its a tax refund of normally 28p for every pound donated or raised by a tax paying uk citizen, its accounted for roughly a billion pounds a year to uk charities since its inception and without it alot of charities; medical, development and environmental would suffer. The truth is the NHS doesnt have you covered and whether you like it or not specialist charities are attempting to fill the gap and recieve more money regestered as charities through voluntary donations than the goverment could possibly ever spare. If you dont like it write to your MP about it, but nothing about gift aid or goverment subsidizing of charities is ridiculous, we still have more econmic pull than most countries out there and therefore have a responsibility to support, consented or otherwise those willing to lend a hand at home or abroad. If your not happy with goverment spending because you think the basic human rights and standards of care of others should be set aside to secure your right to accumilate 'stuff' then move abroad. Sorry to rant but I have worked for a charity for a while now and I am tirred of people defferring the responsibility of care in anyform to the goverment or anyone else except themselves.

Originally Posted by mightyduck

Gift aid is the principle tax benefit recieved by charities from the goverment and its a tax refund of normally 28p for every pound donated or raised by a tax paying uk citizen, its accounted for roughly a billion pounds a year to uk charities since its inception and without it alot of charities; medical, development and environmental would suffer. The truth is the NHS doesnt have you covered and whether you like it or not specialist charities are attempting to fill the gap and recieve more money regestered as charities through voluntary donations than the goverment could possibly ever spare. If you dont like it write to your MP about it, but nothing about gift aid or goverment subsidizing of charities is ridiculous, we still have more econmic pull than most countries out there and therefore have a responsibility to support, consented or otherwise those willing to lend a hand at home or abroad. If your not happy with goverment spending because you think the basic human rights and standards of care of others should be set aside to secure your right to accumilate 'stuff' then move abroad. Sorry to rant but I have worked for a charity for a while now and I am tirred of people defferring the responsibility of care in anyform to the goverment or anyone else except themselves.

ditto. One thing that this (awful shambolic greedy amoral wretched) government have actualy done that is truly good was the introduction of gift aid. In reference to previous 'posters' who say that charity should be withdrawn for hospitals etc. I would suggest that this very (charitable) funding in the main comes from individuals who choose to donate to that particular organisation. All the government are doing is allowing the tax (aready paid at source) to be returned (indirectly) to the payee in the form of allowing said charitable organisation to have that tax refunded within the charitable contribution.

In laymans terms, the money belongs to the individual who donated the gift in the first place (and becomes part of the gift). It would therefore be logical to assume that if the government have returned gift aid contributed tax to the charity and you have not donated any money yourself, you therefore have no right to critisise or indeed no moral scope to suggest that we should 'stop all tax benefits to charities'.

You know who you are

An interesting paper on this topic from the RUSI.
http://www.rusi.org/news/rss/ref:N4A4CA63D8E455/

Click on the highlighted sentence " Preparing for the Lean Years: Defence Consequences of the UK Fiscal Crisis"