Legal and fiscal regulation

 

An issue whose time has come: ICNL holds second global forum

Filiz Bikmen
01 December 2011
Alliance magazine

Promoting a ‘legally enabling environment for civil society and philanthropy’ is a niche field of work, recognized by many as essential, yet often unlikely to capture the headlines. However, critical developments over the past year, namely the Arab Spring, mobilization of the Community of Democracies and appointment of the new UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, have brought this issue front and centre on the global agenda. Click here to read ...


Not so much the money as the camel’s nose in the tent

Rick Cohen
01 December 2011
Alliance magazine

President Obama has four times floated the idea of capping the deductibility of charitable gifts – and other itemized tax deductions such as home mortgage interest payments and state and local taxes – for high-income federal taxpayers. Each time he has been stridently opposed by non-profit sector leaders. If the president were to revive his proposal and somehow find traction in Congress, would non-profits be justified in their concern that charitable giving would decline?

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Fiscal impediments to giving in China

Karla Simon
1 December 2010
Alliance magazine

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates visited China to encourage rich Chinese to engage in more philanthropy. The two industry titans turned philanthropists called their first meeting, with 50 Chinese business leaders, a ‘complete success’. That is good to hear, and my research reveals that there is a lot of energy around giving in China, as Alliance has reported. But the fiscal environment is not yet as favourable to giving as it could be.

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Big Society Bank welcomed but more doubts about the Big Society

20 July 2010
www.alliancemagazine.org

News that, as part of Prime Minister David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’, the UK government is to set up a bank to finance voluntary groups and social enterprises out of the money held in dormant bank and building societies has been welcomed by observers in the sector. Cameron unveiled his plans for a ‘Big Society’ in a speech in Liverpool. Voluntary groups, he said, should be able to run post offices, libraries and transport services and shape housing projects; he spoke of the concept as a ‘big advance for people power’. Click here to read ...


Monitoring EU regulations: when cooperation works

1 March 2010
Alliance magazine

Counter-terrorism measures implemented by the European Union can have a detrimental effect on the work of foundations and other non-profit organizations (NPOs) operating both in and beyond the EU. That is why the Stockholm Programme, the new EU programme in the area of freedom, security and justice for 2010-14, has been such a focus of attention and concern for the EFC in recent months.

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US philanthropy’s response to Obama’s tax proposals: views from the US, Italy and the UK

Ellen Remmer, Massimo Lanza & Charles Keidan
1 September 2009
Alliance magazine

Kudos to Gara LaMarche for challenging US philanthropy’s negative response to Obama’s proposal to partially finance health reform through capping the charitable tax deduction (Alliance, June 2009). Gara raises important moral, political and pragmatic questions about the role that private philanthropy should play in a time of crisis, primarily invoking the ‘higher plane’ argument for a sector that prides itself on service for the greater good.

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Progress for third sector in Kyrgyzstan and Laos

1 July 2009
www.alliancemagazine.org

An agreement was signed in May between the government of Kyrgyzstan and the country’s third sector committing both parties to cooperation in a number of areas, including enforcement of legislative norms, guaranteeing human and citizens’ rights within the country; and public supervision over government’s decision-making at all levels. In addition, the government of Laos has passed a law which allows local NGOs to register and operate as independent entities for the first time.

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Russia moves to ease legislative burden on NGOs, Azerbaijan postpones vote on potentially punitive legislation

1 July 2009
www.alliancemagazine.org

Amid fears in the non-profit community of a crackdown on NGOs, Azerbaijan’s parliament has decided to postpone indefinitely a vote on legislative amendments that would place severe restrictions on the country’s NGOs. The news follows representations by the Azeri ombudsman Elmira Suleimanova, acting at the request of non-profit groups, to parliament to stop or to push back to the autumn a hearing on the changes. Among other measures, the amendments would require NGOs to limit their foreign funding to 50 per cent of their entire budget and would ban foreigners from setting up NGOs.

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Changes to Jersey law will allow establishment of mixed foundations free of UK mainland charity regulation

1 July 2009
www.alliancemagazine.org

As a result of legislative changes in the Channel Island of Jersey, from this month, philanthropists will now be able to set up a foundation with a mixture of charitable and non-charitable purposes, free from UK mainland charity regulation. Jersey foundations will have features of both corporations and trusts. They will have to be registered in Jersey, will be subject to Jersey law and will have to have at least one Jersey resident on their council of members.

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New NGO Repository to aid grantmaking to non-US charities

1 June 2009
Alliance magazine

In October 2009, TechSoup Global, a San-Francisco-based technology non-profit, was selected by the Council of Foundations to host the NGO Equivalency Determination (ED) Repository, which will help US-based foundations provide grants to organizations around the world by streamlining the process of qualifying non-US grantees as the equivalents of US public charities. Pending approval from the IRS, the Repository is expected to launch in 2010.

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