ANNEX 1:: MINOR CHANGES IN THE LAW MADE BY THE BILL This change is in taxpayers’ favour in principle. But it is expected to have no practical effect as it is in line with current practice.
Change 79: Gift aid etc: removal of redundant references to certain charities: sections 430 and 446 and Schedule 1 (section 587B of ICTA and sections 108(4), 620(5) and 628(6) of ITTOIA)
This change omits specific references to the British Museum and the Natural History Museum from the sections treating exempt bodies as charities for the purposes of the rules about gift aid (see section 430) and gifts of shares, securities and real property to charities etc (see section 446). It also omits those references from sections 108(4), 620(5) and 628(6) of ITTOIA.
Both the gift aid rules (in section 25(12) of FA 1990) and those about gifts of shares, securities and real property to charities etc (in section 587B(9) of ICTA) define charity to include the bodies listed in section 507(1) of ICTA.
The list of bodies in section 507(1) of ICTA includes the Trustees of the British Museum and of the Natural History Museum. But the functions of both these bodies are set out in the British Museum Act 1963 and are fully charitable. (It was confirmed that the British Museum was a charity as long ago as 1891, in Special Commissioners for Income Tax v Pemsel (1891), 3 TC 53 HL.)
This does not affect the exemptions from corporation tax afforded to these bodies by section 507 of ICTA, which continue to have effect.