British charities lose a huge £900 million to the taxman every year – a figure that could be substantially reduced with the help of HR.
This is the claim of Workplace Giving UK, a professional fundraising organisation who are calling upon HR departments to ‘make giving count’ by offering Payroll Giving as a benefit to their staff.
Payroll Giving, says the fundraiser, is a simple, tax efficient, scheme which allows employees to give to any charity they choose by having a deduction taken straight from their gross pay. There is no tax for the charity to claim back as it is automatically deducted.
Peter O’Hara, managing director of Workplace Giving, said: “Payroll giving is a win-win initiative for HR professionals. It’s an extra no cost benefit to offer your employees and demonstrates corporate social responsibility in your community.”
Recent research by Oxfam and YouGov found that a third of British employees would give an average of £9.60 a month through their salary if they knew how to and had access to a scheme – this equates to a total of nearly £1bn annually.
According to Workplace Giving UK:
- 96 per cent of companies with payroll giving in place thought it was something a good employer should offer
- 83 per cent said it was simple for staff to join
- 79 per cent said it was easy to run
- 61 per cent said it improved the company image
- 34 per cent said it improved staff morale
- 27 per cent said it improved staff recruitment and retention
And, according to O’Hara, HR departments don’t need to be concerned about the added administrative burden: “HR departments worry about the amount of time payroll giving will take but the reality is quite different. For companies, it takes half an hour to fill in the two forms required to implement the scheme and research has shown that on average payroll only takes an extra 10 minutes every month to process once the scheme is in place.”
