Gift aid

Your gift could be worth 28% more - at no extra cost to you!

Gift Aid is a government scheme which allows charities to claim back the tax you have already paid on your donations. If you’re not familiar with the scheme, it can seem a little daunting at first, so we have prepared this brief guide to help you.

Download a printable Gift Aid declaration in PDF format (56kb)

The basics

If you are a basic rate (currently 20%) tax payer, for every £1.25 you earn, you take home £1.00 and 25p goes to H M Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

If you give that £1.00 to charity under the Gift Aid scheme the charity can claim back the 25p tax from HMRC.  Between 6th April 2008 and 5th April 2011, HMRC will give a further 3p to charities as transitional relief.

This brings the value of your donation to £1.28, at no extra cost to you!

Who qualifies?

The scheme doesn’t just apply to basic rate tax payers. Anyone who pays UK Income or Capital Gains Tax can take part, so any personal tax you pay on your salary, pension or savings is eligible. The same applies to sole traders and partnerships too.

However, as companies can make charitable donations from their gross income BEFORE tax, charities are unable to claim Gift Aid on company donations.

Benefits for higher rate tax payers

If you are a 40% tax payer you can also claim tax relief on your charitable donations. This means that for every £1.00 you give, we still receive £1.28 but it will cost you just 75p.

All you have to do is include our receipt for your donation in your next tax return.

I support a number of causes – who can claim Gift Aid?

If you support more than one charity, you can authorise one or all of them to claim Gift Aid on your donations. The only condition is that you pay enough tax each year to cover the Gift Aid claimed back on all your donations in that year.

If you give £1.00 a year to 10 different charities, each charity can claim 28p under the Gift Aid scheme (made up of 25p tax and 3p transitional relief). This means you have to pay at least £2.50 in tax for your donations to be eligible.

If you’re not sure if you pay enough tax to sign up to the Gift Aid scheme or would like further guidance, please contact your local tax office, or call the HMRC helpline on 0845 302 0203.

Hints and tips for fundraisers

If you are collecting sponsorship for an event or run, don’t forget to ask your sponsors to complete a Gift Aid declaration. It won’t cost you or them a penny, and can increase the total you raise by almost a third!

A Gift Aid declaration is simply a statement that the donor is a UK taxpayer who has paid income tax and / or capital gains tax at least equal to the amount the charity will reclaim on the donation – we don’t even require a signature!

All we need is the name and home address (including postcode) of the donor. This information is not put on our database.

We can’t claim Gift Aid on:

1. Raffle tickets, or other prize entries
2. Entrance fees to an event
3. Donations made via the Charities Aid Foundation (the tax has already been claimed on these)
4. Money collected by one fundraiser (we need each donor to sign a Gift Aid declaration)

If you would like to find out more about the Gift Aid scheme, visit HM Revenue and Customs website (you will be directed to an external site - new window will open) or give us a call on 020 7404 0808 and we’ll be happy to help.