Gift Aid there is something i dont understand

[silverfoxcc]

Not the concept of gft aid in general
I can follow that any subs that i pay to the NT WWF EH and clubs i can say i am a tax payer and they get a cut of my subs from HMRC

Does this apply to admission fees or is there another set of rules for admissions? as i have seen this several times on

For example at The Wealden museum the entry fee for two Seniors plus two kids is 36.00 no mention of Gift Aid BUT if you want to pay gift aid they charge 40.00 Do they get gift aid on the standard 36.00 or just the addtional 4.00?

I have no problems with donations but it does seem a weird way of explaining it Having a compilsory dontation so they can claim gift aid

How would they get around that on turn up and pay tickets? would the visitor have to fill in a form? or will all tickets have to be booked on line with the relevant info?


Any tax people out there?

[peter tdci]

silverfoxcc said:

Not the concept of gft aid in general
I can follow that any subs that i pay to the NT WWF EH and clubs i can say i am a tax payer and they get a cut of my subs from HMRC

Does this apply to admission fees or is there another set of rules for admissions? as i have seen this several times on

For example at The Wealden museum the entry fee for two Seniors plus two kids is 36.00 no mention of Gift Aid BUT if you want to pay gift aid they charge 40.00 Do they get gift aid on the standard 36.00 or just the addtional 4.00?

I have no problems with donations but it does seem a weird way of explaining it Having a compilsory dontation so they can claim gift aid

How would they get around that on turn up and pay tickets? would the visitor have to fill in a form? or will all tickets have to be booked on line with the relevant info?


Any tax people out there?

I'm not a tax expert at all, but did work in a charity that collected Gift Aid, but only on donations (ie Gift). What muddies the waters with Gift Aid is if you get any benefit in return for your donation - in this case the admission fee for entering the museum can't be considered as a gift, because you are getting the benefit of entering the museum.

There's a long HM Gov page for charities about it here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/chariti...

It says that:
3.19.2 A right of admission to view charity property is not treated as a benefit if:
it’s in return for a donation of at least 10% more than the admission charge for an equivalent right of admission - that is, paying £11 for entrance that normally costs £10

So, I think that a charity can claim Gift Aid because HMRC considers the £40 you paid as a donation (because it's more than 10% more than the standard admission price).

It could still work for walk up visitors, but the charity would have to collect the standard bits of info - name and address and a declaration that the person had paid enough tax to cover the Gift Aid claimed.

[silverfoxcc]

Peter

Thanks for showing the small print, i thought there must be a reason. Much appreciated

[peter tdci]

silverfoxcc said:

Peter

Thanks for showing the small print, i thought there must be a reason. Much appreciated

No problem! Like most tax matters everything seems very detailed and intricate.

For instance, if you give something to a charity shop for them to sell (like a book) and you sign a Gift Aid declaration, then the charity/shop acts as an agent selling the book on your behalf. Until it's sold, the book technically still belongs to you. The agreement then is that you've agreed that you will donate the proceeds and the charity can claim Gift Aid on the net sales proceeds. I guess that this is to account for the fact that you've no idea what the shop will sell your book for once you hand it over.

[ARFBY]

silverfoxcc said:

How would they get around that on turn up and pay tickets? would the visitor have to fill in a form? or will all tickets have to be booked on line with the relevant info?

When I visit the UK, I often go to places that ask if I can sign up for Gift Aid. I say that I don't live here, so they just ask for the post code of where we are staying, or parents address.

[PF62]

ARFBY said:

silverfoxcc said:

How would they get around that on turn up and pay tickets? would the visitor have to fill in a form? or will all tickets have to be booked on line with the relevant info?

When I visit the UK, I often go to places that ask if I can sign up for Gift Aid. I say that I don't live here, so they just ask for the post code of where we are staying, or parents address.

As mentioned in the first section of the document previously linked to

A donation qualifies for Gift Aid if it’s a gift consisting of a ‘payment of a sum of money’ by an individual who’s paid, or will pay UK tax, to a charity and satisfies all of the following conditions:…

and

If the donor is not charged with sufficient tax to cover the Income Tax deducted from their Gift Aid donations then they will owe the amount of the difference in tax to HMRC

So if you are not paying income tax in the UK then you are liable for the tax on the gift aid claimed, although obviously HMRC are unlikely to chase someone who doesn’t live in the UK for small amounts.

HMRC say -

In addition, in order for a Gift Aid declaration to be valid, the charity must give and be able to demonstrate it has given an adequate explanation to the donor of the personal tax implications associated with making a Gift Aid donation (read paragraph 3.5) including the responsibility to pay any difference.

But as you have found, well meaning volunteers or poorly trained staff on minimum wage don’t understand this and just want to get the form filled out with names and postcodes.

[s2kjock]

The rules are extremely complicated, partly to stop it being abused, and partly as politicians like to fiddle with it.

One of my colleagues was on an HMRC working group to advise on simplyfing/improving it but Covid effectively suspended the work

As noted above, "errors" are common by claimants ( I have seen it claimed on small school fees and sales of celebrity signed goods). HMRC used to spend time auditing claims on a sample basis, but I am not sure of the extent nowadays.

[PF62]

Fraud isn't uncommon at all with Gift Aid -

https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/charity-treasu...
https://tfn.scot/news/twins-get-10-years-for-gift-...
https://www.accountancyage.com/2016/05/23/gift-aid...
https://www.accountancydaily.co/church-leader-jail...
https://www.charitytaxgroup.org.uk/news-post/2019/...