Income Tax relief is available for gifts of listed shares, unit trusts and securities to a charity.

Since April 2000, it has been possible for a donor to claim Income Tax relief for the full market value of the shares on the date of the gift, in addition to the existing Capital Gains Tax relief. Donors simply claim the relief in their tax return. Companies can also make gifts of shares in other companies and claim relief against their profits for Corporation Tax purposes.

This means that any gift of shares or other qualifying investments is, as before, exempt from Capital Gains Tax. From April 2008 this is currently levied at 18% of any profit over £9,600 per annum. This legislation, however, allows in addition for the donor to offset the total current value of the appreciated stock against Income Tax or Capital Gains Tax. A benefactor could therefore offset a gift of shares which represents money he/she has never actually possessed against some or even all of his/her Income Tax liability for a year.

To take an example, a gift of £10,000 worth of shares costs the donor between £2,000 and £6,000 depending on the level of capital gains of the shares. Hence a donor may be able to give as much as before April 2000 for less than half he/she used to have to contribute. In other words, for a cost of less than £3,000 he/she may be able to give £10,000 worth of shares when, previously, a Gift Aided donation worth £10,000 to the College would have cost him/her £6,000.

This legislation offers tremendous opportunities to those holding shares with significant capital gains and the College is very grateful to all those Caians who have already donated very generously in this way. The new regulations on share transfer have enabled some to increase considerably the size of their planned donation.

If you would like to make a gift of shares, this can be done using the standard gift form.