Gift aid for non tax payers

Ogre_De_Flamme

Have any resident but non UK income tax / CGT paying forum users ever filled in the gift aid box with charity donations ?

laurel7172

In ticking the gift aid box, you're declaring you ARE a UK taxpayer. It's very clear.

In theory, HMRC could pursue the non taxpayer to reclaim the tax they'd donated to the charity under false pretenses.

It is possible to carry back a gift to the previous year, though, if you were a taxpayer then.

Having said which, you don't give your NI number on the form and I don't imagine HMRC checks more than a fraction of gift aid donations to see if the donor is eligible. But it would be really dumb to do it on purpose.

Savvy_Sue

laurel7172 wrote: »

But it would be really dumb to do it on purpose.

especially as the charity has to provide your name and address, and it could potentially cause them a lot of aggro if there seemed to be false claims.

heretolearn_2

Yes, but it's one thing to do it by accident, and another to do it deliberately. You can cause the charity serious problems.

We process gift aid claims for charities. Yes, an established charity that has already made gift aid claims in the past is unlikely to be audited. But it does happen. And part of an audit will normally include a check on a random selection of donors. They will check the records. If one comes up as untraceable/fake/uneligible, it calls into question the validity of ALL the claims being made. And it's not fun/easy to persuade the HMRC auditors otherwise.

It's also morally dubious in my view. What you do with your own tax money is your affair and arranging for some of it to go to a charity is a good thing. But if you submit a false gift aid donation, then you are donating tax that someone else has paid. And I want to decide what charity I want mine to go to, thank you, you don't have any right to it.