Charities can receive up to £4,000 in extra Gift Aid with the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme.
The Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) allows charities to claim a Gift-Aid style repayment to be received on small cash donations of £20 or less up to a threshold of £8,000 of donated income per tax year per church. (The £8,000 threshold applies from the 2016/17 tax year – the limit for prior years was £5,000).
This enables a charity to claim 25% on cash donations of £20 or less, even if you don’t have a Gift Aid declaration.
From 6 April 2016, you can claim up to £2,000 in a tax year or £1,250 for earlier years.
This means that where you have a total of £8,000 in loose cash donations of £20 or less (and where the donor is not identifiable), then you are eligible to claim 25% on that. This has now been extended to contactless card donations of £20 or less collected on or after 6 April 2017.
Donations of £20 or less made by donors who have given a Gift Aid declaration are not eligible.
Also, donations made by cheque, bank transfer or other means other than cash are not eligible.
If you meet in a church building, community hall/centre, hotel hall, school building or leisure centre, you may potentially enhance the small scheme donation by making an additional claim of 25% on £8,000 collected in donations where 10 or more members are in attendance and the meetings are open to the public.
This means you may be able to claim up to £4,000 in total in each tax year you make a Gift Aid claim ( a tax year runs from 06 April to 05 April each year.
Eligibility and record keeping
Who can claim
Your charity or CASC must have claimed Gift Aid:
- in the same tax year as you want to claim GASDS
- in at least 2 of the last 4 tax years (but without a 2 year gap between the claims)
- without getting a penalty in the last 2 tax years
Keeping records
You need to record the:
- total cash donations collected
- date of the collection
- date it was paid into a bank account
For collections in community buildings you’ll also need to record:
- the address of the community building (including postcode)
- the type of event
- an estimate of how many people were at the event
Your charity must have successfully claimed Gift Aid in at least 2 of the last 4 years and must not have had repayment / penalty from an audit.
Find out more about the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) by clicking here.
If you would like to discuss issues arising from this article or to find out more on GASDS, please contact Tobi Lab on 0330 311 2983 or send us an email : info@mattans.com