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Corporate Support(How companies can commit to their community) Severn Hospice appreciates the support given by companies locally in recognition of the care given in Shropshire and Mid Wales to over 1,000 local patients with life threatening illness each year. Occasionally our patients are employees or relatives of employees who are given physical and emotional support often enabling people to cope with the situation and also continue in work where without the hospice they would have to find alternative networks offering specialist care and understanding the nature of the patients unique needs. Ways companies can help: Encourage your employees to donate Payroll
giving Encourage your employees to volunteer We have an amazing team of over 900 regular volunteers undertaking tasks at the hospice, in our retail outlets and fundraising. See volunteering for the full list of options. Employees may wish to form a small work party or volunteer as individuals. Many have skills and experience which are very valuable to us so do offer more specialised skills e.g . stock-taking or procurement systems. Second an employee to work for our Hospice If an employee is seconded part or full time and your business continues to pay their salary you can deduct the costs associated with employing the person as a normal business expense when calculating your profits for tax purposes. This applies to sole traders, partnerships and trading or investment companies. Giving gifts in kind of stock or equipment Your business may be able to claim tax relief on donated items if your business manufactures or sells the item(s) or for machinery used by your business and passed on. When goods
manufactured or sold are donated, nothing
is included as a trading receipt when you calculate the profits
of the trade for tax purposes so you receive relief for the cost
of the item against taxable profits When items of machinery used in the course of your business are donated you can treat these as having been disposed of at nil value when you calculate your capital allowances. Total capital allowances will be equal to the cost of the item. Advice should be sought on VAT, but if stock is being donated rather than sold, you will not be able to recover the VAT incurred on the purchase of the stock. Alternatively you can treat your donation of stock to the hospice as a ‘sale’ for VAT purposes and your business will have to account for VAT on the value of the stock. Items donated for sale or export by the Hospice or Hospice Shops can be zero rated by your business and you can fully recover the VAT on the purchase of the stock, but advice should be taken and you are advised to consult Custom’s National Advice Service. Gift of shares or land can also be made and our appeals Director would be pleased to advise on this specialist area. Sponsorship Sponsorship is generally different from a donation of money in support of an event because your business gets something in return. Eg sponsor of an event receives free tickets for corporate guests or event named after their company. Sponsorship is a taxable activity for VAT. We are happy to discuss possible sponsorship but if your business is considering this method of support you should consult your accountant. Promotions If you intend to give an amount for each item sold then under the Charities Act you are acting as a commercial participator and an written agreement must be made with the charity. We have templates for this and will need to discuss the detail of each agreement separately, please contact us. Giving money Donations to the hospice as a registered charity enable your business to claim tax relief under Gift Aid the way in which this works depends on wither your business is a company, sole trader or partnership. Companies pay their donation to the charity and there is no need to make a Gift Aid Declaration as it is the company not the charity which benefits directly from the tax relief as the donation is deducted from total profits prior to calculating your company’s corporation tax. eg a gift of £1,000 to charity costs your company £800 if corporation tax is 20%. Self-employed / Sole traders are treated in the same way as individuals for Gift Aid. Therefore, your donation is made from income on which tax has been paid and the hospice will reclaim the basic rate tax from the inland revenue providing a Gift Aid Declaration has been completed and given to the hospice. So for every £1 given the charity claims a further 28p. If you are a higher taxpayer and show the amount of your gift on your tax return you will receive relief on the difference between the basic rate and the higher rate of tax on the gross amount of your donation. Partnerships are treated as donations of equal amounts from the individual partners, unless the partnership decides to split them in different proportions. The tax position is as above for individuals. Benefits are strictly
limited if tax relief is to apply £ 0 – 100 25%
of gift Mailings If your company undertakes mailings to customers / clients you could consider agreeing to enclose an item on behalf of the hospice asking for support. Examples; lottery leaflet, Christmas Card list, Corporate Christmas Message Poster. Or you could offer to take a number of pieces of hospice post and put these through your franking machine, thus reducing the hospice postage costs.
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