Venables & Kessler on the Taxation of Charities (4th Ed.) by James Kessler QC
We don’t need a whole book on the Taxation of Charities. We can find all we need to know in the appropriate tax or charity books, can’t we? Well, no we can’t – or so I appreciated after taking a closer look at the new, 4th Edition of this work. Even my favourite book on charity, Professor Luxton’s the Law of Charities, does not try to do anything nearly as comprehensive as this book. Despite Robert Venables QC’s name still appearing on the masthead, James Kessler (now QC too) is in sole command of the ship. He steers the ship through pretty well every strait, past every sandbank, and around every headland that I can think of. There is something here for the general practitioner as well as the specialist. He deals, for instance, with the current hot potato: can you vary a will to excise a life tenancy after the death of the life tenant? He shows how it can be done in a way that may well satisfy the Revenue, and gives the ammunition needed to back up the claim. That must pay for the book by itself, but for the same price you can read his views on how to feast on the "double dip", more alchemy than tax-saving, where the same act may attract double tax relief. But he also does the donkey-work, as when he sets out in clear and accessible form all those fiddly rules about trading, which have one gasping for a drink in the charity’s bar. Those of us who have spent hours putting together lecture notes on this subject know how useful it is to have these rules all in one place, and up-to-date.
As so often in a tax work, one of the best aspects of this book is the direct explanation and assistance the book has to give on associated topics, so that the tax issues can be understood. The section on Trading by Charities is a fine example of that, where the Charity Commission advice is set out fully (and criticised), because the Revenue relies upon it in deciding whether an investment is for the benefit of a charity. Quite rightly, Kessler – in one of his more restrained moments - describes the present system as unsatisfactory.
The work pays close attention to the Revenue’s Guidance for Charities. The book would be only half as useful if it did not, and it is sensible that we can read the Revenue’s published view alongside the author’s own. It helps, too, to create the feeling that the book is free-standing. It quotes from the crucial sources, so that one does not have to be sitting in the middle of a library to use it.
Celebrities go straight to the index of their friend’s autobiographies, with spectacular consequences when Edwina Currie dipped into John Major’s. Lawyers, however, tend to be more boring. I looked in the table of cases. Kessler does not seem impressed with the decision my leader and I secured in the only case of mine referred to in his book (hang on, I’ve just seen another), and seems unimpressed with the arguments we managed to persuade the judge to accept. He does however accept that the practical result of Re Ratcliffe is the good one that charities generally understand it to be. This is another example of how he concentrates on the practical, while giving enough of the theoretical to anyone who wants to know.
You will already have gathered that I like this book. It is easy to read. The contents and index are up to their usual standard, and make it easy to dive straight in to the section you want. I think all practitioners will like it, too. The book will help you, whether you advise charities frequently, rarely, or even not-at-all, since many clients will need the advice on giving to charity that this book contains.
Thomas Dumont
11 New Square, Lincoln’s Inn.
A barrister specialising in charities
Published in Taxation.
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