In his Budget for 2014, the Minister for Finance had announced that commercial companies contributing more than €2,000 to the Malta Community Chest Fund would save tax on half the amount given. The Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations and many hard-pressed NGOs in the voluntary sector were quick to criticise this ‘discrimination’ between the Malta Community Chest Fund and NGOs. In the wake of the outcry, the Prime Minister promised that if the fund-raising incentive worked, it would be widened to include other voluntary organisations.

Yet, when the Budget for 2016 was presented, not only were the exemptions from tax for gifts by companies not extended to the rest of the voluntary sector but, as though to rub salt in their wounds, the Finance Minister doubled the financial concession to the benefactors of the Malta Community Chest Fund. Companies will now save tax on 100 per cent of the amount donated.

The issue is a sensitive one and inadvertently shines an unwelcome searchlight on the Malta Community Chest Fund. Although it does outstanding work under the President’s leadership in raising badly-needed funds for a wide range of philanthropic causes, including large sums spent on specialised chemotherapy treatment and help to sick people and their families receiving medical care abroad, it does not itself enjoy the status of a voluntary organisation in terms of the law. It is a State organisation.

In the wake of the minister’s announcement, President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca was quick to spot the anomaly - and possible criticism - to which the Malta Community Chest Fund had been exposed. She immediately called on the government to extend the tax break privilege to other voluntary organisations.

She rightly said that since the other NGOs were also working hard to raise funds for good causes, they too should enjoy the benefits of the measure. The Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations put it more succinctly: “I am disappointed that the sector or, more accurately, those voluntary organisations enrolled and compliant with the law and, therefore, subject to regulation, have not been rewarded for their enrolment.”

There are over 300 voluntary organisations, supported by about 6,000 volunteers, who have been excluded from this tax benefit.

The Malta Community Chest Fund is a leviathan in fund-raising terms. It does so aggressively and slickly with all the advantages of having the whole-hearted backing of the President and supported by all the resources of the State and its entities, including PBS, which runs a campaign throughout the year, not just the annual L-Istrina telethon event at Christmas.

Voluntary organisations that are also doing excellent work in the fields of social welfare, elderly care, cultural heritage, children’s homes and many other sectors do not enjoy a level playing field with the Malta Community Chest Fund.

This is wrong and unjust in principle and practice.

The sense of injustice is not helped by the recently-published audited accounts of the Malta Community Chest Fund, which showed that, last year, it spentmore than €500,000 simply in organising L-Istrina, an increase of €200,000 on the year before.

Although there may be extenuating reasons for this hike in expenses, the fact remains that it highlights the glaring disparity between an organisation whose donors are given a 100 per cent tax break and the hundreds of small- and medium-sized, recognised voluntary organisations, which are denied it.

There is an urgent need for the Minister for Finance, who has hitherto shown a deft touch in his Budget-building, to remedy this clear injustice.