Gift aiding

I think you only have to tell each charity once, then HMRC remembers.

Yes, when you first register with them/take your first bag in. I think it’s up to the charity to claim.
Of course just dropping it off in a bin or outside the door won’t work, so worth taking a few minutes to give them your address and postcode when you first go in.

Yes, well worth doing.

The only criteria is that you must pay income tax to the value or more of the gift aid claimed.
For example Maw needed to have paid at least £133 in income tax that year.
I pay no income tax so I put my gift aid in DH's name.
You need to register with each charity separately. They assign you a number which is added to your donations. HMRC are notified when one of these items sells and they donate 25% more on top of the selling price.

I use the app "My Charity Shop" which translates your gift aid number into a bar code.

Charities have done quite well out of me this year and extra through gift aid.
I went to a different one once and when the person asked me if I had signed up to gift aid I said No, thinking she would invite me to do so but she didn’t. As I only went there because my usual one was closed, I didn’t say anything , but she missed her chance.

Cabbie21

Charities have done quite well out of me this year and extra through gift aid.
I went to a different one once and when the person asked me if I had signed up to gift aid I said No, thinking she would invite me to do so but she didn’t. As I only went there because my usual one was closed, I didn’t say anything , but she missed her chance.

"she missed her chance" - she probably assumed you weren't a tax payer and didn't want to pry. It's a loss to the charity not to the woman who was likely a volunteer.

Last year our parish received over £5000 from Gift Aid donations and we have a drive on at the moment to persuade more parishioners to sign up.

Initially, when I became too ill to work, I had to ask various charities to remove me from their Gift Aid register, because I was no longer paying tax. I then transferred all the Gift Aid into DH's name.

You are liable for the Gift Aid amount if you stop paying tax, but the charity continues to claim. Consequently HMRC will try to recover that amount from you personally.

Consequently HMRC will try to recover that amount from you personally.

I had this last year. A combination of reduced earnings and higher expenses meant I wasn't liable to pay any income tax, for the first time in very many years!
However I had to pay the £178 gift aid that had been claimed in my name, through my self-assessment tax return.

Cabbie21

Charities have done quite well out of me this year and extra through gift aid.
I went to a different one once and when the person asked me if I had signed up to gift aid I said No, thinking she would invite me to do so but she didn’t. As I only went there because my usual one was closed, I didn’t say anything , but she missed her chance.

Sorry Cabbie but that's a rather strange attitude. The charity missed the chance of a bit of extra money, not the volunteer. You sound almost proud of the fact.

Strange way to read my post.
I don’t really want to support that particular charity so I guess I wasn’t going to go out of my way to instigate gift aid for a small one off donation. I was on my way to somewhere else and didn’t want to keep carrying the item. My usual charity shop was unexpectedly closed - no reason given. Maybe those details explain my comment. I wasn’t bothered, but the volunteer might have misread the situation.

One thing I have noticed when buying tickets to enter English Heritage and National Trust Properties is that on the board stating the cost the with Gift Aid is higher than without gift aid , Surely this is wrong as it should not cost you more to Gift Aid? Can anyone explain this please . I always only pay the standard price.

Albangirl14

One thing I have noticed when buying tickets to enter English Heritage and National Trust Properties is that on the board stating the cost the with Gift Aid is higher than without gift aid , Surely this is wrong as it should not cost you more to Gift Aid? Can anyone explain this please . I always only pay the standard price.

The price with Gift Aid includes a donation, usually 10%, but maybe it's possible to donate a higher sum. Even paying the additional 10% means it works out cheaper as a basic rate taxpayer would receive tax relief at 20% on the whole sum paid and higher rate taxpayers even more. This only “works” of course where you are both a taxpayer and claim the tax relief for Gift Aid on your tax return.

Yes, you can’t claim Gift Aid on a purchase, only on a donation, so the figure quoted includes a nominal donation in order to qualify

My Gift Aid letter from a national charity inspired me never to donate to them again.

They run a donation centre next door to a local big supermarket - easy parking and they rarely reject donations because they're full. I had a MASSIVE clear out, probably 30 or 40 carloads, including lots of brand new stuff, still in boxes, since I had made the mistake of buying stuff for a house move that fell through. The volunteers were ooh-ing and aah-ing over it. Must have been worth many hundreds if not thousands.

My Gift Aid letter said, £16.29.

I had previously had my suspicions when an overheard conversation led me to believe that something I'd donated was going home with a volunteer without getting on the charity's records at all; the letter confirmed it.

So they get nothing now. Recently I got a letter from them urging me to donate. Not bl**dy likely.

I wasn,t meaning I expected to claim gift aid back only why would you be asked to pay a higher price when gift aiding ?

I am a member of a charitable organisation and we request that members sign up for gift aid on their membership subscriptions.
One member has refused, not because she is not eligible, but because she “didn’t want everyone knowing her financial situation”. What???
Really annoying.

Recently donated a lot of things to a local charity, trying to downsize and also gifting many of late DH's possessions. Gave the gift aid number we'd always used only to be told later that the gift aid was in late DH's name and could not be transferred into my name meaning the charity lost out on the extra 25% and I couldn't claim huge donation amount on my tax return. Very disappointing.

Quizzer

I am a member of a charitable organisation and we request that members sign up for gift aid on their membership subscriptions.
One member has refused, not because she is not eligible, but because she “didn’t want everyone knowing her financial situation”. What???
Really annoying.

We had someone who refused "because they'll dock it from my pension" ?
Some people have funny ideas.

HMRC know more about your finances than you do 🤣

RosiesMaw, I volunteer in a charity shop and when people bring in donations and haven’t got their Gift Aid details on the bag I weigh up whether to ask if they are tax payers or not as I always feel it’s a bit intrusive. If they are and have just forgotten they usually feel pleased to be reminded that their donation will raise an extra 25%. If not usually it’s ok but sometimes it feels a bit awkward.
25% extra makes a huge difference to donations particularly high value ones like designer goods or expensive branded household goods, unopened good branded perfumes. We are very fortunate to have celebrity donors and influencers who are given things which they would never use.

I think something we should all think about is , gift aid isn’t a “gift” it’s a diversion.
I heard this on a radio discussion about tax. The expert said she always refuses because she believes the elected government should decide how tax revenue is spent, not a charity.
Anything diverted by gift aid is no available for the essential services we all take for granted.
Perhaps this is why some people are refusing as they know it will eventually effect everyone’s pension

I think the point about entry to various places is this:
You can only 'gift aid' a donation.
So if entry was priced at say, £10, you can't 'gift aid' that.
If priced at £10 +£2 donation, you can 'gift aid' the £2.
I have found it very confusing, and the first time a volunteer explained it to me, she got it wrong, which didin't help.

I broadly agree with Mogsmaw's point. I was brought up to both volunteer, and donate to charity, and I do. But we are now too reliant on the patchwork of charities that are filling gaps without proper overall planning.

I always make a point of increasing a charitable donation with Gift Aid. It’s so important for charities which are wholly reliant on donations. The government has quite enough tax from most of us without looking at Gift Aid as depriving them of more. If you have chosen a charity to which to donate you are likely to support its aims and the way it spends its income. If you refuse to use Gift Aid so that the government has extra money to spend, how can you possibly know that it will go on essential services? I would rather give to a charity than further enrich the Treasury any day.

I agree!

As someone who has dealt with gift aid for a charity, just a reassurance that the charity dies not know anything about your financial affairs apart from that say you've made a £20 donation, that you have paid £20 in tax. The other thing is that it reduces the amount of tax you pay that year.
If you do your return and pre gift aid you are due to pay £40, but you have made a donation, you only are due to pay £20 tax ( so it is a way to make a further donation to the charity) if you donated £40 over the year, no tax due, legally.
As well as being extra funds to the charity, gift aid income is unrestricted funds. So much charity income in the form of grants has to be spent on a particular thing, quite rightly, if you get a grant to do a particular project, you have to spend it on that. Unrestricted funds can be used for other things, such as running costs, or projects that are not as attractive to grant funders
If you can gift aid something, a donation, or whatever then do gift Aid
Don't get too hung up on how much a shop raises on your donation, it might have been v dear, and you lived it, but things are only worth what people are willing to pay. It's better than putting it in landfill isn't it
If you think you can do better with selling the stuff, just sell the stuff, and donate the money (and gift aid the donation!)