New guides on charitable tax changes
Nineteen different information sets have been created by the Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector (OCVS) to highlight the key benefits of payroll giving and offer ideas to promote payroll giving and overcome barriers to its introduction.
They also explain recent changes to the tax treatment of volunteer reimbursements and honoraria, and the lifting of the cap on tax credits for charitable donations.
Information has been designed for specific audiences such as Māori, the arts, sports groups, recreation organisations, churches, schools, fundraisers, employees, corporates and small-medium businesses.
Donee organisations/charities have key roles to play in encouraging their existing supporters to consider how they want to give of their time and/or money. This might include supporters actively requesting payroll giving in their workplaces. Donee organisations that employ staff can also set an example by implementing payroll giving in their own workplaces.
Research on giving indicates that approximately 794,000 people in employment are already committed givers (ie: making regular contributions of time or money to causes that are important to them). By switching to payroll giving, many of these workers could potentially get money back that they might not have claimed from Inland Revenue in the past. This effectively makes donations more affordable, which may encourage some people to increase the amounts they give.
The guides are:
- It's now easier to give: Information for employees
- It's now easier to give: Information for small to medium enterprises
- Making it easier to give: Information for corporate companies
- Making it easier to give: Information for fundraisers
- Making it easier to give to early childhood centres
- Making it easier to give to schools
- Making it easier to give to tertiary and research institutes
- Making it easier to give to Māori organisations
- Kia māmā ake te tuku koha ki nga whakahaere Māori
- Making it easier to give to Pacific Island organisations
- Making it easier to give to arts and cultural groups
- Making it easier to give to environmental groups
- Making it easier to give to social service providers
- Making it easier to give to international aid organisations
- Making it easier to give to health organisations
- Making it easier to give to recreation and social clubs
- Making it easier to give to sporting organisations
- Making it easier to give to religious organisations
- Making it easier to give to registered charities
To download and print the version most relevant to you visit: http://www.ocvs.govt.nz/work-programme/three-key-projects/payroll-giving.html .
A limited number of hard copies are also available, e-mail: ocvs@msd.govt.nz .