In the UK (and other EU countries), a charity donation can be tax deductible, which means you can make a smaller donation and the charity can top-up with the tax you originally paid when collecting your salary.

The EU has now ruled that governments cannot limit tax deductions to donations made to charities within the same country as the resident.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=CJE/09/5&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

It’s all a bit arcane – and probably wont affect that many people.

However, as the infamous furniture retailer, Ikea is actually a Dutch charity (albeit for reasons of tax evasion than doing good deeds), could I here in the UK make a “donation” to Ikea in the Netherlands and get a gift back of, say a new sofa – and use the tax deduction to lower the amount of my upfront donation?

I’d love to see a tax lawyer exploit that one