If you pay tax in the UK your donation can be substantially increased in value by Gift Aid. This is because the College can claim back from HMRC the basic rate tax already paid by you. If you are a higher rate taxpayer, you can also claim personal tax relief on the difference between the basic rate of tax (currently 20%) and higher rate (40%) or the additional rate income tax (45%), on the gross value of your gift.

For legacies and bequests the charitable status of the College means that they are free from inheritance tax and capital gains tax which reduces the total liability on your estate. Those leaving at least 10% of their taxable estate to charity will have the tax charged on the remainder of their taxable estate reduced from 40% to 36%.

Share transfers

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.

The Caius Foundation is a US tax-exempt educational and charitable organisation under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. US taxpayers may give tax-deductible gifts to The Caius Foundation and recommend that its directors make grants benefiting Caius.

For more information on the Caius Foundation, please visit our Make a gift page.

Caius is a Fundholder with the Chapel & York Hong Kong Foundation. By giving to Caius through the C&Y Hong Kong Foundation you can make tax-efficient donation to the College. 

To make a donation to Caius online through the Chapel & York Hong Kong Foundation, please visit the Foundation’s donation page and select “Gonville & Caius College” from the Fundholder Name drop-down list. This page also contains information on how to make a gift via wire transfer or cheque, and how to donate stocks and shares or gifts of property.

The Development Office is very pleased to announce that we are now able to accept tax-efficient donations from various European countries, thanks to new partnerships developed between various European foundations to enable cross-border donations. The TGE (TransGivingEurope) network enables organisations to accept tax efficient donations in other countries, without having to set up branches or sister organisations for that sole purpose or having to master different national systems of law.

At the moment, only a limited number of countries have signed up to this agreement, but the aim is that more will do so in the future. The foundations in both France and Switzerland should be operational very soon, while progress is being made by the Giving in Europe partnership to extend it to Italy, Spain, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.

The procedure for making a tax-efficient donation works as follows: the donor makes a gift to the Foundation in his or her country, which will then transfer the gift to Caius through its partner foundation in the UK, the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF). Any tax benefits can be claimed by the donor in his or her country of residence and will be sorted out by the relevant Foundation.

The countries listed below have a Foundation that accepts gifts for Caius. Donors need to contact the Foundation in their country for information on how to make the gift. The staff in the Foundations are experts in the tax laws of their countries, and can advise donors on the level of tax-efficiency that is available.

BELGIUM
King Baudouin Foundation
Rue Brederodestraat 21, 1000 Brussels
Telephone: 00 32 2 549 02 31
Fax: 00 32 2 549 02 89
Email: tge@kbs-frb.be

GERMANY
Maecenata Foundation
Programme Transnational Giving, Rungestraße 17, 10179 Berlin
Telephone: 00 49 30 2838 7909
Fax: 00 49 30 2838 7910
Email: tge@maecenata.eu
Website: http://maecenata.eu

IRELAND
Community Foundation for Ireland
32 Lower O'Connell Street, Dublin 1
Telephone: 00 353 1 874 7354
Fax: 00 353 1 874 7637
Email: info@foundation.ie

THE NETHERLANDS:
Oranje Fonds
J.Fl Kennedylaan 101, 3981 CB Bunnik
Telephone: 00 31 30 656 45 24
Fax: 00 31 30 656 22 04
Email: tge@oranjefonds.nl

POLAND
Foundation for Poland
ul. Narbutta 20/33, 02-541 Warsaw
Telephone: 00 48 22 54 25 880
Fax: 00 48 22 54 25 890
Email: tge@fdp.org.pl

FRANCE
Fondation de France
Telephone: 00 33 1 44 21 31 00
Contact form: https://www.fondationdefrance.org/fr/contact

If the European country in which you pay tax is not listed here, please make a donation through our Overseas donations page.

The University of Cambridge is now able to issue Canadian tax receipts that cover gifts made to Caius.

Gifts of all sizes are welcomed by the College at any time. Caius encourages you to donate to general support, so that your gift can go to where it is needed most, but gifts for other purposes are also welcome. The College is especially grateful to Caians who multiply their generosity by pledging a gift to be paid in annual, monthly or quarterly instalments over several years.

We can accept cheques in any currency, if you would like to make a donation by cheque please download our overseas donation form.

We regret that we can only accept donations by credit card in sterling, if you would like to make a donation in sterling to the College you can donate online now or download our overseas donation form.