We don't like your charity, so we'll close it!!!

**Aristophanes** · November 06, 2006, 10:34 PM

We don't like your charity, so we'll close it

By Alasdair Palmer

Next week, the new Charities' Bill will finish its passage through Parliament. It should become law before the end of the year. In spite of being billed as "the biggest review of charity legislation in the past 400 years", it has generated very little comment. This is surprising, because the Bill will vastly increase the power of the Charities' Commission to dissolve charities, confiscate their endowments and assets, and give them to what the Commission considers a more genuinely "charitable" cause...

More here...

This looks like a poorly disguised effort to turn revenues generated for charity into just another revenue for the government, or, at the very least, revenue for the government's agenda. It may seem a small thing that we be able to freely donate to the causes we think are best, within reasonable limits; but this principle lies at the very heart of the liberal democratic system.

**Big War Bird** · November 06, 2006, 10:45 PM

Just what unfree people deserve, government telling its subjects that they cannot even give their money away.

**VALIS** · November 06, 2006, 10:49 PM

this is truly disgusting......although what would what you expect from a labour government and hardened socialist brown,who wants to tax us into oblivion,destroy competitiveness and self betterment and now destroy the last bastion of laissez-faire capitalism 'charity'.

well this is what we get,i suppose.

**bdh** · November 06, 2006, 10:58 PM

How a government, any government, could rationalize this makes little sense to me. Hopefully, there is some context that didn't come through in the article, otherewise, this is absolutely ludicrious. This isn't just taxation, this is the literal seizure and re-application of funds because somebody else supposedly knows how to do it better.

**harm** · November 07, 2006, 01:37 AM

I'd rather have the government controlling charity. I don't like having bibles shoved down my throat so I can get some damn soup.

**Aristophanes** · November 07, 2006, 10:42 AM

Originally Posted by harm

I'd rather have the government controlling charity. I don't like having bibles shoved down my throat so I can get some damn soup.

...the beauty of charity is that you have the option to NOT go to soup kitchens run by religious nutbars, and the beauty of soup kitchens with religious nutbars is that you can simply ignore everything they say. The danger of a single-provider system[i.e. the government] is that there is only one option: should you run afoul of the state, you are left without any recourse.
If the government controls it, it is no longer charity...it's a tax. I have a feeling that few people will donate if they can't personally control where the money goes. How will the government make up the shortfalls and sharp drop in charitable giving?

But seriously, what a progressive view you have on this matter!

**Bovril** · November 07, 2006, 11:47 AM

I think the explicit purpose of this legislation is to allow governemnts to seize funds of charities which are supporting illegal activities, such as Jihadist groups. However, it could be easily abused.

**carl-the-conqueror** · November 07, 2006, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by Bovril

I think the explicit purpose of this legislation is to allow governemnts to seize funds of charities which are supporting illegal activities, such as Jihadist groups. However, it could be easily abused.

yes i think this is both the reason and inevitable cause, but i dont like the idea of seizing the money, also it should need a referenda, or a trial, convicting the organisation before dissolving it.

**Tom Paine** · November 07, 2006, 11:49 AM

I believe this is in the UK, am I right?

I'm unsurrised in all honesty. The Charities' Commission is one of a few sources that give no money to the government despite huge amounts of money floating around in its jurisdiction; the government's willingness to take money from charities is unsurprising, given our present unscrupulous bunch of politicians.

**Lusted** · November 07, 2006, 01:04 PM

I'd rather have the government controlling charity. I don't like having bibles shoved down my throat so I can get some damn soup.

We're not all religious nutjobs you know.

I do have to say i am very worried if this bill is what it seems to be. As a volunteer in my local Oxfam, i care about where the money goes too. I don't want it taken by the government, it should go to where it is needed.