A post on the Financial Service Providers / Fastrade Products bulletin board on the Motley Fool's UK site set me thinking. The author, "BogusDude", was explaining that he held very small amounts of shares in the poorly performing Interactive Investor International and lastminute.com in his Fastrade account. He wanted to move from Fastrade to avoid the quarterly account charge but was faced with a £15 per stock transfer fee (not worth it when your holdings are worth £65 and £45 respectively).

I have been a supporter of the Charities Aid Foundation ("CAF") for a couple of years now, which is, for those that don't already know, a charitable organisation which assists individuals and companies to donate to charity in a tax efficient manner. Today in The Times on page 7 is an advertisement explaining how the CAF can assist public spirited individuals give shares to charity " and receive up to 80% tax relief!" One the CAF's excellent websites http://www.allaboutgiving.org/shares/uk explains more about it. The only problem is that the CAF need the gift to be worth at least £250 to make it worth while.

Do you remember that old school photograph showing you with hair over your ears or wearing flared trousers? I feel a bit like that about my 35 shares in lastminute.com (and it was only this time last year!) I am doubly embarrassed since I bought 35 shares for my wife as well! How many of the 189,000 private investors still hold those 35 shares (if it's 50%, that's still over £2.1 million at the current 65p).

So what to do with my family's 70 shares (worth £45.50) in lastminute.com?

Hold on…why don't I ask Fastrade to waive their stock transfer fees for shareholdings donated to the CAF? Perhaps if Fastrade can find a few more like-minded people we can scrape together £250 worth?

Better still, why don't fellow Motley Fools ask their brokers, Charles Schwab, Halifax ShareXpress, E*Trade etc. to do the same?

Could Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman help to promote the appeal with a token donation of 35 shares of their own? Let's face it, the company will be a big beneficiary not having to send out annual reports and similar correspondence to so many of us. Great public relations as well!

Why limit it to lastminute.com, there's plenty of fallen dot coms which would fit the bill.

Hey! Isn't Red Nose Day happening on 16th March 2001? http://www.comicrelief.com/

So let's summarize. I can give my family's 70 shares in lastminute.com worth £45 to Comic Relief and claim £30* of income tax back from the Inland Revenue. I therefore benefit Red Nose Day to the tune of £75 (that's the equivalent to 107p each for my lastminute.com shares). There has to be a problem somewhere doesn't there?

Well yes there is!

1. It's only a month to go before Red Nose Day.
2. I need a load of UK stockbrokers, not just Fastrade, to agree to help.
3. The scheme needs publicity!

Fellow Motley Fools (I feel so cheap for asking for this so blatantly) but if you agree with my idea please give me a rec. If this gets on to the most recommended page someone influential (David Berger perhaps?) might pick up the baton and make it the Post of the Day (let's face it, the markets are quiet enough!) David might forward it on to, say, Lenny Henry and before you know it Gordon Brown might be interviewed about the idea for Red Nose Day. (Then we can ask him to reward the generosity of private investors by abolishing stamp duty!)

ExcaliburJewel


* about £12 for basic rate taxpayers

Hi EJ:

What a brilliant idea. I didn't even know that such a scheme existed. (For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I've copied EJ's posting below).

We would be delighted to take part and do what we can. For those that donate their shares, we'll waive all exit fees. I've called the Charities Aid Foundation, and they can accept both UK and foreign stocks.

You mentioned three potential stumbling blocks, one of which is the publicity. However, we might be able to help you a bit with that. I'll do what I can to get the word out!

Why don't you post your suggestion on the Broker Board as well - I know that I'm not the only one who keeps an eye on it!

Louise


A post on the Financial Service Providers / Fastrade Products bulletin board on the Motley Fool's UK site set me thinking. The author, "BogusDude", was explaining that he held very small amounts of shares in the poorly performing Interactive Investor International and lastminute.com in his Fastrade account. He wanted to move from Fastrade to avoid the quarterly account charge but was faced with a £15 per stock transfer fee (not worth it when your holdings are worth £65 and £45 respectively).

I have been a supporter of the Charities Aid Foundation ("CAF") for a couple of years now, which is, for those that don't already know, a charitable organisation which assists individuals and companies to donate to charity in a tax efficient manner. Today in The Times on page 7 is an advertisement explaining how the CAF can assist public spirited individuals give shares to charity " and receive up to 80% tax relief!" One the CAF's excellent websites http://www.allaboutgiving.org/shares/uk explains more about it. The only problem is that the CAF need the gift to be worth at least £250 to make it worth while.

Do you remember that old school photograph showing you with hair over your ears or wearing flared trousers? I feel a bit like that about my 35 shares in lastminute.com (and it was only this time last year!) I am doubly embarrassed since I bought 35 shares for my wife as well! How many of the 189,000 private investors still hold those 35 shares (if it's 50%, that's still over £2.1 million at the current 65p).

So what to do with my family's 70 shares (worth £45.50) in lastminute.com?

Hold on…why don't I ask Fastrade to waive their stock transfer fees for shareholdings donated to the CAF? Perhaps if Fastrade can find a few more like-minded people we can scrape together £250 worth?

Better still, why don't fellow Motley Fools ask their brokers, Charles Schwab, Halifax ShareXpress, E*Trade etc. to do the same?

Could Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman help to promote the appeal with a token donation of 35 shares of their own? Let's face it, the company will be a big beneficiary not having to send out annual reports and similar correspondence to so many of us. Great public relations as well!

Why limit it to lastminute.com, there's plenty of fallen dot coms which would fit the bill.

Hey! Isn't Red Nose Day happening on 16th March 2001? http://www.comicrelief.com/

So let's summarize. I can give my family's 70 shares in lastminute.com worth £45 to Comic Relief and claim £30* of income tax back from the Inland Revenue. I therefore benefit Red Nose Day to the tune of £75 (that's the equivalent to 107p each for my lastminute.com shares). There has to be a problem somewhere doesn't there?

Well yes there is!

1. It's only a month to go before Red Nose Day.
2. I need a load of UK stockbrokers, not just Fastrade, to agree to help.
3. The scheme needs publicity!

Fellow Motley Fools (I feel so cheap for asking for this so blatantly) but if you agree with my idea please give me a rec. If this gets on to the most recommended page someone influential (David Berger perhaps?) might pick up the baton and make it the Post of the Day (let's face it, the markets are quiet enough!) David might forward it on to, say, Lenny Henry and before you know it Gordon Brown might be interviewed about the idea for Red Nose Day. (Then we can ask him to reward the generosity of private investors by abolishing stamp duty!)

ExcaliburJewel


* about £12 for basic rate taxpayers

We would be delighted to take part and do what we can. For those that donate their shares, we'll waive all exit fees. I've called the Charities Aid Foundation, and they can accept both UK and foreign stocks.

Brilliant effort Louise, as ever quick off the mark. The PR benefits to your firm of having someone reading the BB's must be good.

Michael

Hi ExcaliburJewel

Great idea! As for the 3 problems....

1. It's only a month to go before Red Nose Day.
2. I need a load of UK stockbrokers, not just Fastrade, to agree to help.
3. The scheme needs publicity!

1. I suspect that probably gives everyone just about enough time but it's hard to say for sure. As long as something is set up by then it should get the ball rolling. I think many Red Nose schemes run for a little while afterwards anyway.

2. Could be the trickiest bit. We can speak to the brokers that we have contacts with. Unfortunately the people in the office who deal with them aren't around this afternoon so, at this time, we're not sure how responsive they would be. There's only one way to find out and at least we have one to get us started :-)

3. We can help promote this on our site as well. We're planning to do a special feature on Red Nose Day anyway and we might do a Fool's Eye View on charitable giving as well.

When we do get any response from the brokers we'll pass it on. That could take a few days though.

Regards

Stuart

TMFTiger wrote...

"We can help promote this on our site as well. We're planning to do a special feature on Red Nose Day anyway and we might do a Fool's Eye View on charitable giving as well.

In planning to do a feature on Red Nose Day would that mean you have contact with Comic Relief? I have tried to e-mail them but haven't heard back yet. Nobody's got Lenny Henry's e-mail address by any chance, have they?

If you're doing a more general piece on charitable giving I would strongly recommend speaking with the Charities Aid Foundation or promoting their site (http://www.allaboutgiving.org)

The 113 recs for my original post (http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6426823) indicates widespread support among other Fools for my idea. It would be interesting to start a Poll which tried to gauge how many Fools would donate small shareholdings to Comic Relief and what the likely value raised could be. However I feel if I tried to do it, it wouldn't get as wide an audience as it would if TMF put it on one of it's more widely read pages.

What do you think Stuart?

Thanks and regards
EJ

Hi EJ

In planning to do a feature on Red Nose Day would that mean you have contact with Comic Relief?

No. Just running a feature on that day.

If you're doing a more general piece on charitable giving I would strongly recommend speaking with the Charities Aid Foundation or promoting their site

We'll probably link to it as a place to go for further research etc. Not sure who's writing the piece yet.

It would be interesting to start a Poll which tried to gauge how many Fools would donate small shareholdings to Comic Relief and what the likely value raised could be.

No harm in you doing a poll. We could do one as well, but we'd be reluctant to make any decision based upon the results. Polls are not great indicators for this sort of thing.

Regards

Stuart