Here’s a weird, but hardly novel, controversy: Charity tax row: Oxbridge joins revolt.
The Oxford and Cambridge vice-chancellors wrote privately to Chancellor George Osborne saying his plans risked undermining the culture of university philanthropy. UK universities, which raised some £560m from charitable gifts last year, want him to rethink. Ministers want to stop tax avoidance. Mr Osborne says he is shocked by thescale of legal tax avoidance by multi-millionaires. Under current rules, higher-rate taxpayers can donate unlimited amounts of money to charity and offset it against their tax bill to effectively bring the amount of tax they pay down, sometimes to zero. But from 2013, uncapped tax reliefs – including those on charitable donations – are to be capped at £50,000 or 25% of a person’s income, whichever is higher… An Oxford University spokeswoman said that the government’s own policy emphasised the role of private and philanthropic investment, rather than the public purse. “A step that penalises the government’s own approach seems ill-considered.”
Hmmm. How about this alternative statement:
The university’s own justification depends on its promoting self-consistent argument, rather than specious self-serving sophistry. “An argument that contradicts the university’s own raison d’etre seems ill-considered.”
Common Infirmities 