delivery elements of Big Society is in part likely to come through donations to charity which will be exempt from tax as valid deductibles. Government spokesmen are encouraging the rich to give. Apparently oblivious to how poorly this message is received by those who do, and just ignored by those who donʼt. But this opens a key question: a charity either does or does not qualify for status as a tax deduction. And yet the activity of the
Big Society is to be big this needs to be attended to in order to direct funds and encourage discipline in setting spending objectives towards areas where private provision has clearly greater effectiveness. I have a hypothesis that wealthier younger
Jainism and so on. In societies (small s) where religiousness is strong and growing the kind of non-State self- help that the label Big Society is meant to describe just happens. Look at the US level of charitable donations versus the UK as an example. This
Democratic societies have a lot to say about priorities for State tax and public spend but almost nothing to say about tax-exemption and private spend.
charity may be to fund cat shelters or shelters for youths. Democratic societies have a lot to say about priorities for State tax and public spend but almost nothing to say about tax-exemption and private spend. And that clearly makes no sense. We should have democratic control over what level of exemption can be provided depending on the worth as judged by a democratic process of the intended target. Some charitable activities may warrant a greater than 100% tax exemption, a finely targeted subsidy, while others may attract little or no tax incentive for donors. If the
donors whose life expectancy is now even longer could have the energy with which their wealth was accumulated harnessed to
the
public good by making some simple changes to the apparently neglected area of charitable tax deductions.
Whilst on this second problem for the Big Society, who should validly provide public services, we should not be shy to note that there is a strong religious element to the ideal allocation. In Islam charity is an obligation not a recommendation or an aspiration. And in Judaism. And in
has strong Judeo-Christian roots with stronger Mormon additions. But in the world post- Dawkins other arguments must be marshaled to support the view that self-help should replace State help. It is not clear to me that this work has been done.
# For the third fundamental but fixable issue for the Big Society, we need to consider the development of the institutions of capitalism that enable the for-profit ecosystem to change shape and benefit from scale where scale helps and to retreat to smaller units where scale becomes a burden.
43 entrepreneurcountry
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