>Over the decade-long period, the foundation has managed to amass a fund of £730m but handed out £78m. The majority of the money given to the foundation, mostly by companies in the Bet365 group, has yet to be distributed.
That’s pretty staggering numbers.
>the trustees of the Denise Coates Foundation are all members of the Coates family or employees of the Bet365 group. The foundation has no independent trustees.
Hmm…
jheller22 on
>“The way the rules currently work means that tax relief can be claimed much earlier than we think it should be and potentially more relief than should be available,” TaxWatch said.
This is an interesting point, but what the Denise Coates Foundation is doing is not as nearly nefarious as the article implies.
If you give a small amount of money to charity, it makes sense to spend it on good deeds there and then. However, if you give a really large amount of money, there are other, potentially better options available.
For example, instead of spending the money directly on good causes, you could buy shares and bonds and then donate the dividends/interest payments to charity. This has the advantage of being self sustaining – the dividends/interest can be donated to good causes every year basically indefinitely, potentially doing more good in the long run than a big one off payment could have done.
This seems to be what the Denise Coates Foundation is trying to do. The concerning issue is:
>the trustees of the Denise Coates Foundation are all members of the Coates family or employees of the Bet365 group. The foundation has no independent trustees.
I think some requirement for independent trustees would go a long way towards building trust in this area.
2 Comments
>Over the decade-long period, the foundation has managed to amass a fund of £730m but handed out £78m. The majority of the money given to the foundation, mostly by companies in the Bet365 group, has yet to be distributed.
That’s pretty staggering numbers.
>the trustees of the Denise Coates Foundation are all members of the Coates family or employees of the Bet365 group. The foundation has no independent trustees.
Hmm…
>“The way the rules currently work means that tax relief can be claimed much earlier than we think it should be and potentially more relief than should be available,” TaxWatch said.
This is an interesting point, but what the Denise Coates Foundation is doing is not as nearly nefarious as the article implies.
If you give a small amount of money to charity, it makes sense to spend it on good deeds there and then. However, if you give a really large amount of money, there are other, potentially better options available.
For example, instead of spending the money directly on good causes, you could buy shares and bonds and then donate the dividends/interest payments to charity. This has the advantage of being self sustaining – the dividends/interest can be donated to good causes every year basically indefinitely, potentially doing more good in the long run than a big one off payment could have done.
This seems to be what the Denise Coates Foundation is trying to do. The concerning issue is:
>the trustees of the Denise Coates Foundation are all members of the Coates family or employees of the Bet365 group. The foundation has no independent trustees.
I think some requirement for independent trustees would go a long way towards building trust in this area.