The Association for Protection of Public Trusts and Charities has urged the Union authorities to repeal or modify sure amendments to Finance Bill 2023 relating to charitable establishments.
More than 250 varied public charitable trusts and non-profit establishments on Monday got here collectively in Mumbai to talk about the implications of Finance Bill 2023 on charitable establishments and different such not-for-profit organisations.
They stated they’d submit a white paper with signatures of NGO representatives to the central authorities urging it to revise and rethink its stance.
Under the Finance Bill 2023, amongst others, it’s proposed that if one charitable organisation donates to one other charitable organisation, solely 85% of such donations given might be thought-about as utility of earnings for the donor charitable organisation.
Which means if Trust A donates ₹1 lakh to Trust B, within the books of account of Trust A ₹100,000 might be mirrored as charity given, nonetheless solely ₹85,000 will qualify as ‘application of income for charitable purpose’.
The representatives of the organisations stated this may show to be a serious setback for purely grant-making organisations, together with company foundations and middleman organisations, which work with implementing businesses on the grassroots degree.
Noshir Dadrawala, CEO, Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy (CAP), stated the amendments proposed are detrimental to hundreds of charitable establishments throughout the nation.
“While there is a visible ease-of-doing business, there should also be ease-of-doing charity. The charitable organisations only supplement government’s effort in the welfare and development space,” he added.
Viren Merchant, Chartered Accountant stated, “The proposed amendments are discouraging charitable foundation and philanthropic institutions to do good work and reach the last mile. Disallowing 15% of the expenditure, if donations are made to another charitable organisation, clearly means suffocating small charities of funds and curbing its resources and networks.”
The affiliation has recommended that the proposed amendments be repealed OR if required, be modified.
