Gift Aid – How to make your donations go further

What is Gift Aid?

Gift Aid is a government scheme that allows charities to reclaim the basic rate tax you pay as a UK taxpayer. For every ￡1 you donate, we can claim 25p of tax, at zero extra cost to you. To start this process, you must make a Gift Aid declaration.

How do I make a Gift Aid declaration?

All you have to do is tick the Gift Aid box on any donation form you fill out for Taylor-Made Dreams. This does mean that you must be a tax paying individual to be able to give Gift Aid.

Which donations qualify for Gift Aid?

You can apply Gift Aid to all voluntary donations of money, of all sizes, if they are made by an individual who pays sufficient UK tax.

Gift Aid declarations cover all cash, cheque, credit or debit card, Direct Debit, postal order and standing order donations.

You cannot apply Gift Aid to donations received from tax efficient payment schemes, such as: Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) payments or payroll gifts, as tax relief has already been claimed.

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Do I qualify for Gift Aid?

There are a couple of checks for you to make before we can claim Gift Aid on your donation. You must:

• Be a UK taxpayer
• Have paid or expect to pay enough income or capital gains tax in the tax year your gift was received to cover all the Gift Aid donations you made to charity that year
• Make a Gift Aid declaration
• Let us know if your tax status changes in any way that would affect us being able to claim Gift Aid on your donation.

Is that all I have to do?

Yes! It’s a small thing that can make a big difference to charities. Your tick in the Gift Aid declaration box helps to make your donations go further for our services.

There’s no extra paperwork, but if you want, you can keep a record of donations you make to charity in each tax year. This helps to make sure that you are still able to give Gift Aid by keeping an eye on your tax status.

How Important is Gift Aid?

Your Gift Aid donations make a huge impact. In the 22/23 tax year charities received “￡1.6 billion in Gift Aid” (gov.uk, 2023). Without that Gift Aid tick box, charities would miss out on those funds completely, and many are. In that same tax year “the number of charities receiving Gift Aid fell for the fourth consecutive year” (fundraising.co.uk, 2023).

It’s easy to miss a tick box on a form, but this box can make a real difference. Your added Gift Aid allows us to provide more wishes, more counselling sessions and more interactive tables for our TMD families.

We deeply appreciate everyone that donates to TMD, you allow us to continue providing much needed services for families in your community. Thank you from everyone at Taylor-Made Dreams.

References

• https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-charity-tax-relief-statistics/uk-charity-tax-relief-statistics-commentary
• https://fundraising.co.uk/2023/07/14/gift-aid-income-rose-to-1-6bn-in-last-tax-year/#:~:text=Charities%20in%20the%20UK%20received,just%20over%2064%2C000%20in%20total.