Schedule 19
Finance Bill
9:00 am
Nick Palmer (PPS (Malcolm Wicks, Minister of State), Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform; Broxtowe, Labour)
I welcome the comments we have just heard, which were sensible and helpful. Going slightly wider, it seems that there is no overall rationale for how we work tax relief for charities. In effect, we say that if a person is taxed at the standard rate we will refund the tax to the charity, but if they are taxed at the higher rate, we will refund it to the individual. That is something that we have got used to, and it is not an unreasonable position in principle. However, as the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge said, that system leads to uncertainty when the standard rate moves down or up. I wonder if, in the longer term, we should look at decoupling this and having a standard deduction that does not necessarily alter as the standard rate moves up and down.