Success! Chancellor excludes charitable donations from new tax relief cap

Chancellor George Osborne

You may have seen in the news that the Chancellor proposed to introduce an ‘Income Tax Relief Cap’ in Budget 2012.

For the first time this limits the amount of tax relief that individuals can claim, and would have included charitable donations.

Immediately after the Budget statement Cancer Research UK, along with nearly 3,500 other voluntary organisations, began campaigning for the Government to exclude charitable donations from this cap.

We rely on major donors to fund some of our crucial work, particularly for the Create the Change campaign that we’re currently running to raise funds to build the Francis Crick Institute.

Many of our major donors contacted us after the Budget to say that they wouldn’t donate, or would reduce their donations, because of the cap and because they felt that their charitable giving was being misrepresented. We used their feedback to try and persuade the Government to exclude charitable donations from the cap.

We are extremely pleased that the Chancellor, George Osborne MP, has now committed to excluding charitable donations from the cap.

The Chancellor confirmed his decision on 31 May in a letter to our Chief Executive, Dr Harpal Kumar, and a small selection of other charity leaders. We are very pleased with this lobbying success, which we believe will save Cancer Research UK between £5m and £15m over the next 3-5 years.

Here’s the letter: