Any other business: Do the maths: no one in their right mind uses charitable giving to minimise tax

You wouldn’t thank me for filling this column with arithmetic, but the way in which the government has sought to defend George Osborne’s proposed tax-relief cap for charity donations, and the way most broadcasters have tried to challenge it, has displayed woeful if not wilful ignorance of the tax maths involved. It’s as though ministers have been instructed by Downing Street on no account to consult the easy-to-follow section of the HMRC website headed ‘Giving to Charity: Individuals’ lest it deter them from parroting the line about the iniquity of the super-rich minimising their tax rates by exploiting reliefs. Likewise, it’s as though the leftists who populate BBC newsrooms, inherently hostile to charity and philanthropy, have never personally encountered a Gift Aid form — the most common route for tax-efficient giving — with its certification that ‘I will pay an amount of Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax in this tax year that is at least equal to the amount of tax the charity will reclaim on this gift.