Gift Aid and UK Tax

By declaring you are happy for us to claim Gift Aid, you will allow Jesus to reclaim the basic rate of income tax on your donation and increase the value of your gift by 25%.

For your gift to qualify for Gift Aid, you must have paid income tax or capital gains tax that is equal to, or more than, the amount of tax that is claimed by each charity you have donated to within that tax year (6 April to 5 April).  Taxes such as VAT and Council Tax do not qualify.  Higher rate taxpayers are also entitled to claim tax relief on their gifts in the form of a rebate from HM Revenue & Customs. This is the equivalent of 25% of the original (net) gift to the college and means that a net gift of £1,000 to Jesus will cost the donor £750.

To claim Gift Aid the donor must pay income and/or capital gains tax at least equal to the amount that will be reclaimed.

For more information on Gift Aid, please see the HMRC website.

Charities Aid Foundation (CAF)

The CAF Charity Account works like a bank account designed specifically for charitable giving.  You decide how much you want to give and pay it into your account. Because CAF is a charity, you can claim back the tax on Gift Aid donations and add it to the amount in your account. You can also fund the account through payroll giving or by gifts of shares, exactly as with any other charity.

More information can be found on the CAF website.

Payroll Giving

Payroll giving is a way of giving an amount of money each week or month from your pay. It is a tax-effective way for employees, non-executive directors and those receiving a company pension to give a regular amount to one or more charities directly from their income. It can also be used for a one-off gift.

The donation is made from your gross salary (before tax has been taken off). This means you receive tax relief immediately on the value of your gift. Another way of looking at it is that the money you would have paid in tax goes to your chosen charity.

More information can be found on HMRC’s website.

Tax-Efficient Giving from Overseas
To make a gift tax-efficiently from another country, please see below.

• USA
  Americans for Oxford is the University’s primary charitable organisation in North America, and has been determined by the United States Internal Revenue Service to be a tax-exempt public charity with 501(c)(3) status.
• Canada
  Canadians can donate a number of ways, and the University will ensure that you receive a Canadian income tax receipt for your gift.
• Transnational Giving Europe
  The College is a registered partner with the above, which allows tax payers in many European countries to give tax-efficiently. If you live in the following countries there is a partner available: Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Switzerland.
• Rest of World
  The University offers its overseas Old Members a variety of ways to donate tax-efficiently.

The figures below give the annual cost of funding the relevant post or programme. A gift of £16k (plus Gift Aid), for example, will fund one DPhil Student for a full year. Support can come in the form of a one-off payment or instalments over a three to five-year pledge.

All examples below come with unique recognition opportunities in the new Northgate building. If you would like to discuss a bespoke philanthropic interest please contact the Development Team.

Teaching

Annual spend-down funding of Teaching Fellowship: £90k or £72k (plus GiftAid)
Three-year spend-down funding of Teaching Fellowship: £270k

Research

Annual spend-down funding of DPhil Studentship starts from £20k or £16k (plus GiftAid)
Three-year DPhil Spend-down Fund starts from £60k-£100k

Student Support

Annual Undergraduate Bursary Spend-down: £3,350 or £2,700 (plus GiftAid)
Three-year Undergraduate Bursary Spend-down: £10k

Access and Outreach

Annual Support option to cover the regional activities in either London, Oxford or Wales. Support for the full scheme for an entire year starts from £30k (plus Gift Aid)

The figures below give the funding required to endow the relevant post or programme in perpetuity. Since the sums required are very substantial, historically endowment gifts have most often been made either as legacy gifts or from institutional donors. (Information on how to leave a legacy, please scroll down to the Leaving a Legacy section.)

All examples below come with unique recognition opportunities in the new Northgate building. If you would like to discuss a bespoke philanthropic interest please contact the Development Team.

Teaching
Full Endowment of Teaching Fellowship: £2.7M

Research
Full endowment of Graduate Studentship: £600K–£1M depending on the subject

Student Support
Full Endowment of an Undergraduate Bursary: £100K

Access and Outreach
Full Endowment of the Access & Outreach Programme plus the support of an Access Fellow & Access Officer: £6M
Full Endowment of Access & Outreach Programme: £4M
Full Endowment of Access Fellow and Access Officer: £2M
Full Endowment of an Access Summer School Programme in London: £1M

Making a gift to Jesus College in your Will can help ensure that current and future generations of students continue to receive the rich educational experiences just as you once did. It is also free of Inheritance Tax as Jesus College is a registered charity (no. 1137435).

Making an unrestricted gift is the greatest way for your legacy to safeguard the future of the College. It enables us to react to changing priorities and to direct your support where it will make the most difference at any given time. It is also possible to designate your legacy to support a specific purpose or fund.

If you are considering leaving a legacy to College and would like to find out more, please contact the Director of Development or the Estates Bursar. All discussions are non-binding and are treated as confidential.

We both, fortunately, received student grants and assistance from charities (in part funded by legacies). While providing first for our children, we wish to contribute to the wealth of opportunities offered by a community we treasure and from which we have gained lifetime benefits. Our bequest to Jesus College is a simple, rewarding, tax-efficient part of our estate planning.”

–Keith Cotterill (1981) and Helen Cotterill, née Wright (1980)

Informing us that you have remembered the College in your will does not commit you in any way. Importantly, it gives us the opportunity to thank you personally, to ensure that you are kept up to date with College developments, and can enjoy the benefits of your future support during your lifetime.

How to Remember the College in Your Will

It is simple to include a gift to Jesus College at the time of writing or rewriting your will. An appropriate form of words would be:

“To the Principal, Fellows, and Scholars of Jesus College within the City and University of Queen Elizabeth’s Foundation, I give …………. and I declare that the receipt of the Estates Bursar or other proper Officer for the time being of the said College shall be full and sufficient discharge to my Executors for the legacy herein bequeathed to the said College.”

You can also amend an existing will by adding a codicil. We advise that you consult your legal adviser when amending or setting up your will.

The University of Oxford North American Office can advise on estate planning and legacy giving for alumni of Jesus College in the USA or Canada. Please see www.oxford.planyourlegacy.org.

Recognition and Naming

The College offers appropriate naming opportunities to recognise legacies received.

Tax

Inheritance Tax: Jesus College is a registered charity (no. 1137435). This means that the value of any gift you make to the College in your will is deducted from your estate before it is assessed for Inheritance Tax, which reduces the tax liability. The rate of Inheritance Tax in the UK is currently 40%. Executors have to pay this level of tax on assets above the threshold of £325,000 for an individual or £650,000 for married couples and civil partners (in 2015/16).

Deed of Variation: A Deed of Variation can be used if you are a beneficiary of a will and would prefer to reduce Inheritance Tax liabilities following the testator’s death by making a charitable donation. To find out more about Deeds of Variation, please contact your legal adviser.

Planned Giving: If you are a US or Canadian taxpayer, Oxford Planned Giving offers a number of tax-efficient ways to make a bequest to the College. More information can be found at planyourlegacy.org.

Impact of Charitable Giving on Inheritance Tax: Charitable legacy carries a tax advantage and, depending on the size of the estate, a charitable legacy may be increased from 4% to 10% without any pecuniary loss to the family.

Types of Legacy

There are number of types of legacy which you can make to support the College.

Residuary Legacy: this is the gift of all or part of the net residue of your estate, after all gifts to family and friends, liabilities, legacies, and administrative expenses have been met. This form of gift is particularly simple as you do not have to quantify the sum or worry about inflation when you draw up your will.

Specific or Non-Monetary Legacy: if you wish, you can leave personal possessions, such as property, jewellery, works of art, or stocks and shares, to the College.

Pecuniary Legacy:  this simple form of legacy allows you to give a specific sum of money to Jesus College. The disadvantage of this kind of gift is that the value will decrease with inflation.

Conditional Legacy: this provides for the eventuality that, if any one of your named beneficiaries does not survive you, their part of your estate, or a portion of it as you decide, will be left to the College.

Reversionary Legacy: this gift has the advantage of providing for your family first and then benefiting the College. It involves leaving your asset to trustees so that the beneficiaries can enjoy the benefits during their lifetime, with the whole or a portion passing to the College on their death.

The College received its first benefactions of land from Principal Griffith Lloyd (1572-86), whose small bequest of Cardiganshire property came to the College after his widow’s death in 1615, and from Bishop Herbert Westfaling of Hereford (d. 1602), one of thirteen commissioners named in Queen Elizabeth’s second (1589) charter, whose bequest of two Herefordshire farms came early in 1603. (One of these, Sydcombe, at Dorstone, near Hay-on-Wye, remained in the College’s possession until 2009.) Many small endowments, bequests of land, subscriptions towards building, and contributions towards the College library followed from well-wishers during the reigns of James I and Charles I, sometimes as the result of specific fund-raising campaigns. Principal Francis Mansell (1630-49), an ambitious developer, pulled down Thelwall’s library and built the eastern half of the residential Second Quadrangle, probably to attract the sons of South Welsh gentry families, who occupied at least one of the two new staircases in some comfort. Ejected as a royalist in 1649, Mansell was reinstated in 1660, but was too broken in spirit to remain as Principal for more than a few months. His successor (1661-73) was his former pupil (Sir) Leoline Jenkins from Llanblethian, Glamorgan, a busy lawyer who combined his principalship with practising in London in the Court of Arches and High Court of Admiralty.

After twelve years as Principal, Jenkins left the country as a diplomat, and was later created a Secretary of State. On his death in 1685 he bequeathed the College a large complex of estates, acquired on his behalf by lawyer friends from members of the distressed, over-mortgaged landowning classes of the Restoration period. These comprised groups of farms in Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, the Vale of Glamorgan and the Taff Valley mining area, and ten acres of the London estate of the Earls of Arundel across the Thames from their town house in the Strand. With money left by Jenkins, the College purchased further farms in west Oxfordshire, and, on his instructions, filled all sixteen College fellowships and (mainly graduate) scholarships. (Originally allocated eight of each, the College had officially supported sixteen of each since the Statutes came into force in 1622, but had enjoyed too small an income to be able to keep all of them filled at once.) Two fellows were to be allotted Greek and Latin lectureships which Jenkins endowed to further the study of the classics. Jenkins also endowed ‘missionary fellowships’ to encourage young clergymen to minister in the Navy and overseas, and increased the regular fellows’ stipends, by dividends from his estate and other payments, to a more realistic figure than the previous £20 a year.

Jenkins left the College his library, which included many fine classical texts and works on international law, and set up a trust fund for the support of his old school at Cowbridge. His portrait hangs behind High Table in the College hall; while nearby hangs a portrait of his patron King Charles II, in an elaborate baroque frame, bequeathed by him to the College. The full-length portrait of Queen Elizabeth I behind High Table, attributed to Hilliard or his school, was presented to the College in 1687 by a former fellow, James Jeffreys, a brother of the infamous protégé of Charles II, Judge George Jeffreys.

Secured for the future by Jenkins’s benefaction, the College received another important bequest in 1713. This came from a former member of the College, Edmond Meyricke, and comprised lands in North Wales and Carmarthen, with funds for the support of Bala Grammar School and for scholarships and exhibitions at Jesus for students from North Wales.