The government is considering whether to make concessions over its plans to cap tax relief on charitable donations.
A survey released by the Charities Aid Foundation revealed that nearly nine out of 10 charity executives believe the plans will severely hit gifts from major donors.
David Cameron, speaking on his visit to Indonesia, continued to defend the plans, saying he was at one with the chancellor over the need to end abuses of the system. But he promised to look at charities' concerns sympathetically.
One proposal being circulated is to treat gifts to UK-based charities differently from those to charities based abroad. But ministers say this idea may be complicated by EU law requiring equal treatment of EU-based charities.
Of the 120 charity executives surveyed, 88% said the plans to cap tax relief would have a "negative impact on the value of donations from major donors", and 82% that they would "have a negative impact on the relationship between the wealthy and charities".
More than half said charitable income would be cut by more than 20%, a clear blow to government plans to increase charitable giving. The survey also found that 78% want the proposal dropped.
The Charity Commission said it had been given no specific evidence of abuse by philanthropists to investigate by the Treasury. It had also not been warned of the cap on relief before the budget.
The Charity Commission responsible for regulating charities in England and Wales stressed it could not investigate philanthropists that gave money to charities that were registered abroad, and only operated abroad.
The Treasury refused to go into specifics abuses, but cited the example of a wealthy individual claiming tax relief on a fundraising dinner, and then holding further fundraising dinners with no funds actually dispersed to a charity.
Speaking in Jakarta, on the second stage of his Asian trip, the prime minister said: "George Osborne said in the budget we would look at the effect on charitable donations because we want to encourage charitable giving. I repeated that in my speech at the launch of Big Society Capital. We'll look very sympathetically at these concerns."In the Budget Osborne announced that from next year anyone seeking to claim more than £50,000 of these reliefs in any one year will have a cap set at 25% of their income.
The budget Red Book says: "The government will explore with philanthropists ways to ensure this new limit will not significantly impact upon charities that depend on large donations."
The prime minister said that he and Osborne were united. He explained: "I've no doubt there is a problem with some people who are using a range of tax allowances to reduce their effective tax rate down to very, very low often single figures. The proposal in the budget was to say that there should be a limit on their tax allowances to £50,000 or up to a quarter of your income. It's very important to recognise that.
"Even in America, there is actually a limit on the extent of tax allowances that you can use .
"There's no doubt abuse is taking place. We've been very clearly informed of that by the Inland Revenue, who are responsible for these matters. Some people have been using charities established in other countries to funnel money in, so they're not paying 50p tax or 45p tax but 10p or 20p tax. I think that isn't right. I'm confident we can get the balance right. The chancellor and I are absolutely aligned on achieving this."
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