hen did the act of giving become so taxing? When we repainted the dining room last year, I culled my books by a third. I managed to shift a few hundred paperback thrillers to the next village (Kevin hoovered up "anything about Hitler"; Wendy wanted graphic forensic examination of bodies long dead; Ruth liked celeb-bios). I moved the poetry and Eng Lit to keep upstairs, plus the novels of Robert Harris (local author, signed copies). Everything else, we boxed up: political memoirs, art books, studies of Blair's wars in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan and loud, feminist cries of pain dating back to the late 1970s. I picked the Oxfam bookshop in St Giles, Oxford, to donate to, partly because my friend there has a blue badge, which meant we could park with two wheels on the pavement and stagger the shortened distance. In fact, two nice boys came out to do the heavy lifting. All the staff were welcoming and jolly, and I was just walking out when someone on the till asked me to Gift Aid them. "It's what we call our Tag Your Bag scheme," she said, handing me a form and a sheet of sticky labels. Whenever we sell one of your books, we can get another 28 pence on top of the price. Foolishly, I once believed that Gift Aid had been thought up in order to aid the giver, after the American fashion, thus making him keen to give more. Knowing the treasurer of our local church as well as I do, I have a better comprehension of the intricacies of the benefits (for charities) of Gift Aid. If a UK-taxpaying member of the congregation at tomorrow's service folds his tenner into a Gift Aid envelope, the treasurer can count each tenner as £12.80 and every thousand pounds as £1,280 because HMRC, in effect, returns the basic-rate tax that has already been paid - but to the charity, not to the donor (who paid it). HMRC does this provided, of course, the church treasurer is in possession of a declaration stating that the sum in the envelope is a Gift Aid donation, that the donor is a UK taxpayer and lives at 1 Hogget Bottom, Adbury (or any address at which he may be reached). I have never been able to work out why Mrs Thatcher's government decided to set up this bit of fiddle-faddle in 1990. Unfortunately, The Downing Street Years seems to have vanished from the house. I donated my books last spring. This week, I received an email from Sarah Farquhar, signing herself as "Head of Retail Brand," which is a big title. She writes: "Thank you for choosing to Tag Your Bag - it means that since we last wrote to you [I don't remember her last note], your items have not only sold for £19.78 but made an additional £4.95 in Gift Aid." Fancy, thinks I. Sarah goes on blithely: "The £24.73 could help to create a job in waste management for a Kenyan youth in Nairobi"; there's a note explaining that the £24.73 I've apparently donated is "subject to regional variation and for indicative purposes only." Indicative of what, though, I ask myself. Reading on, I realise that this letter is not meant to indicate anything much to me at all. It is meant to indicate to HMRC that Oxfam is complying with HMRC's finely detailed tax-gathering regulations. We hope you're still happy to donate this money to Oxfam, as we can use it to make a big difference. But if you've changed your mind, please visit our terms and conditions for advice and let us know within 21 days. Changed my mind? The truth is that the nugatory £4.95 I've apparently donated in Gift Aid, which "could help" to create jobs for Kenyan youths, is not actually Oxfam's money until I have agreed that I am "still happy" for them to take the Gift Aid on my books. "My books"? I still own the books. If I answer the email negatively, Ms Farquhar would have to send me my £19.78 and the Gift Aid would go by the board. I thought all our tax lunacies were down to Gordon Brown?