New National Co-ordinator; this month’s Deadlines

Louise O’Reilly here, newly appointed National Co-ordinator for the National Campaign for the Arts. I have hit the ground running on the Campaign with support from Janice McAdam, and following on from our statement on the departure of Eugene Downes from Culture Ireland, and our meetings with the DAHG, I will have an update on developments and action plans around the Public Sector Reforms later this week. 

In the meanwhile, here are some imminent deadlines for you to be aware of:

Deadline May 10th 
EU Culture Ministers Meeting re Culture Programme ‘Creative Europe’ 2014 – 2020

The EU Programme for Culture ‘Creative Europe” is about to be discussed in Brussels on Thursday – There are a number of points of interest, not least protecting increased funding for the arts at a European level, and your voice is valued in this campaign. Our colleagues at IETM have summarised their response to the proposals, and we think the following document will be useful for you to review in order to formulate your own response and action accordingly. 

Deadline May 11th 
Submissions re Tax Relief for Donations to Approved Bodies under Section 848a of Tax Consolidation Act 1997.

Following from representations made by the charities sector and the recommendations of the Forum on Philanthropy and Finance, the Minister for Finance invites interested parties to make submissions regarding proposed amendments to the charitable donations scheme. These amendments are set out here

The deadline for submissions is this Friday May 11. Colleagues at Business to Arts who recently held a briefing session with Sheila Norden, CEO of ICTR, have very kindly shared with us some key considerations for any submissions you plan to make to the Revenue Commissioners on the proposed changes to Section 848a of the Tax Consolidation Act.

Whether you are for, against or neutral toward the proposed changes, we encourage you to make a submission on behalf of your organisation. To lend weight to your submission, we advise you to provide as much evidence as possible. You should consider assessing the following in your organisation

• The value of donations over €250 made by individual PAYE Donors and Self Assessed Donors
• The value of donations over €250 made by individual PAYE Donors at the different tax bands (higher and lower)
• If the majority of PAYE Donors are at the higher tax band, give an approximate change in income that will occur if a composite rate of around 30% was introduced
• Among your Self Assessed Donors, try to identify the number that avail of Section 848a and approximate what tax band they are assessed at 20% or 40%. You should try to identify whether they actually use the benefit against their tax liability
• Provide feedback from Self Assessed Donor’s stating the impact these changes will have on their planned giving, if any
• Identify any other changes to Section 848a, which you think will help achieve greater levels of giving under this Section

Note

• The proposed changes do not have any impact on corporate contributions.
• If you are planning or are about to launch a major capital campaign, or are expecting a major philanthropic gift it is worthwhile providing a detailed submission.
• If the above information is relevant to your organization and you would like to make a submission, please contact me on louise@ncfa.ie for further guidelines for submission and excel model provided by ICTR accompanied with relevant health checks. 

With thanks to Andrew Hetherington | Project Director Business to Arts

Until my next update, Louise O’Reilly, National Co-ordinator