LAW ON DONATIONS AND SPONSORSHIPS

Although the worldwide practice shows that the tax exemptions have limited influence on business philanthropy, examples of such legal incentives in our neighboring countries have demonstrated positive impact especially in societies with low culture of giving and growing economies where wealth creation is very challenging.

Therefore, setting up enabling legal framework that will stimulate the philanthropic activities of companies and individuals has been one of the key CIRa’s activities during past several years. CIRa was initiator and facilitator of the process for preparation of the Law on donations and sponsorships in public activities, adopted by the Parliament in April 2006. The law makes a clear distinction between the donations and sponsorships and respectively predicts different tax deductions for companies donating for public purposes. Although it went into the force on 1 January 2007, large number of companies has stated that they are not introduced with the benefits of the law. Also, many companies have demonstrated fear to use the law being afraid of attracting additional attention of the governmental institutions such as the Public Revenue office.

During 2007 with the support of the partner organizations within the Civic Platform, we have started with the promotion of the lawamong the companies, NGOs and public institutions by organizing more than 10 workshops in different towns around Macedonia and have established a Guide for implementation of the Law. In the first half of 2008 we have continued our work with the generous support of the British Embassy. Within this incentive in the period of 5 months (February-June 2008), we have targeted not only companies but the relevant public institutions as well. In this regard we have organized 4 workshops for 47 company representatives on how to use the provisions of the Law, 1 workshop for the public servants of 10 relevant public institutions on how to implement the law and delivered 1 training on Strategic Corporate Philanthropy for 8 companies. Furthermore, 16 000 promotional leaflets were designed and inserted in the daily newspaper Dnevnik and the interactive web site (www.zdsjd.org.mk) for on-going support to the donors and recipients was created.

Additionally, in a period of several months, from December 2007 till April 2008, in partnership with the European Center for Non-for-profit Law (ECNL) and the Foundation Open Society Institute Macedonia (FIOOM) and within the USAID Civil Society Strengthening Project, CIRa has monitored the implementation of the Law. Within this process we have run interviews with 35 companies that have already utilized the Law. The collected data included in the Assessment Report are not for public use, but the general conclusions are that the Law is beneficial, but needs additional revision and that there is a great need for further promotion and education on the Law for donations and sponsorships.

On invitation of the Parliament’s Commission for Culture to provide support in preparation of the public hearing about the Law on Donations and Sponsorship in public areas (LDSPA), CIRa in May-June 2010 prepared the Analysis and Recommendation for improvement of the LDSPA. This support goes in line with our attempts for improvement of the LDSPA. As a one of the witnesses Executive Director of CIRa has addressed to the members of the parliament with the key request for improvement of that law and consequently have supported the process of writing recommendations that president of that commission sent to the Ministry of Justice.