We need to distinguish between good and bad charities

Not all charities are equally good. But taxpayers are forced to give as much to the bad ones as the good ones. That needs to change.

You will know by now that I don't entirely approve of tax relief on charitable giving. But even if I did, I would still think that our current system is lousy: it gives us no way of distinguishing between good charities, useless charities and bad charities.

I've referred before to the book out from philanthropy adviser Caroline Fiennes (It Ain't What You Give, It's the Way That You Give It) but it is worth returning to with this in mind. The idea of the book is to show donors how best to give their money, but read between the lines of various bits of it and you will see pretty clearly that not all charities should be considered equal in the eyes of taxpayers.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Explore More
Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.