Gift Aid Admission Prices

mxd321

RebeccaBloomwood wrote: »

I think I can explain this:

They cannot claim any tax back from normal ticket prices as it is not a donation, it is paying for a service. For them to be able to gift aid something it has to be a donation. So there is a separate type of ticket, a donation ticket, which has to cost slightly more, which they are then allowed to gift aid. It might cost you £1 more, but the charity would get a lot more than that back.

So by donating £1, the charity gets a lot more than that. Which sounds worth it overall, really.

Just had a look further into this and a charity has two options when asking for gift aid on admissions - either charge extra on admission prices OR offer free return visits for 12 months. As a customer I'd rather have return visits, and as per my previous post the attraction is more likely to make money out of me if I go back and visit. Win win situation in that case and doesn't annoy people by asking for more money.

See below taken from HMRC website.

Admission fees that do qualify for Gift Aid

Only voluntary donations qualify for Gift Aid. If your charity allows a donor the right of admission to view charity property, then providing certain conditions are met, the benefit of the right of admission can be ignored and the donation may qualify for Gift Aid.
Your charity could ask visitors to make a voluntary donation that meets either of the following conditions:

• it is 10 per cent more than the normal admission fee
• it allows admission for at least a 12 month period

McAzrael

bigmomma051204 wrote: »

I don't think it is so much that people think they are being "scammed" with this..... i rarely take my family on day trips as we can't afford it. There are 3 of us and when we went to Paignton zoo (another place that does this 10% on top thing) it cost us an extra £4-something to get in. It may not sound much, but it would have paid for my little boys ice cream and part of the mini train ride around the zoo!

I am not tight at all, but i just feel that having to verbally say (usually in front of queues of people!) that i don't want to pay the extra for charity donation is highly embarassing (yes, as a moneysaver i shouldnt care i know lol!)

Just ask for a non gift-aid ticket. If they ask you to gift-aid it just say you can't. Plenty of people can't for plenty of reasons (they have no income, they live abroad, they find the idea of forcing other taxpayers to support their favourite charity abhorrent, etc.) and the cashier will have heard it plenty of times before. They won't bat an eyelid.

marksmith99

One (maybe obvious) point to note is that for anyone who pays tax at the 40% or 50% rates, the higher priced ticket actually works out cheaper (if you can remember to keep receipts etc for your tax return).

alexlyne

was reading this thinking about my recent visit to Portsmouth Dockyard... wondering why only one price, but able to giftaid it. Then remembered that *some* of the attractions allowed readmission for up to a year after. But not *all* the attractions. Surely this means that only some of the entrance fee can be giftaided?

Also, if giftaid can only be reclaimed on 'donations'... is this in the same tone of 'voluntary donations', or just 'donations' which if I remember correctly from my school days, we were only allowed on a school trip if we made a 'donation' of a specific value. Or can I argue that I can go see the attraction regardless or not of if I have made a donation? (not really a serious point, but hey i anyone has a thought then feel free to comment)

Plus, if you went to a church or something, and put a quid in a donation box, can you also stick in a declaration so they can giftaid that pound?

koru

Chatsworth House charges an extra 10%, but then gives you a voucher that can be used to pay for food in the cafe or goods in their shop, and the voucher is worth more than the extra ticket price. This seems to be another way to make it worthwhile for everyone who is a UK taxpayer to go for the gift aid donation.

BillTrac

There's a museum in Chichester (for the life of me I can't remember the name) which shows two entry fees. Standard is £7.50 and gift aid is £8.25 which follows the 10% maxim.

I couldn't understand why,as others have said,as I thought the tax they clawed back was from the entry fee. Bit more understandable now, though I agree if they were to explain this then it would possibly encourage more participation.

tintinherge

Very useful post and it all starts to make sense.

Windsor Castle and Leeds Castle, for example, have the same price but allow re-entry over 12 months.

On the other hand, the special exhibition at The National History Musuem costs £1 more for Gift Aid tickets.

2 things can be done from a customer point of view:
- more places should encourage a free visit within 1 year. This might result in increased revenues if I buy food/drinks/memoribilia from the Gift Shop, or I might bring along some more friends and family to the attraction. Plus they get my Gift Aid tax - A win-win
- The Government has to seriously think about allowing such charities to claim tax on the same price ticket as long as I am sigining a small Gift Aid form. This can only be a good thing for the country and its citizens in the long run.

redpete

tintinherge wrote: »

- The Government has to seriously think about allowing such charities to claim tax on the same price ticket as long as I am sigining a small Gift Aid form. This can only be a good thing for the country and its citizens in the long run.

That's what used to happen, the Government (or maybe HMRC) did think seriously about it and decided that it didn't meet the conditions of Gift Aid.

esr123

Watch the National Trust for this. We, being non-members, were asked by the very nice lady whether we'd like to gift aid our entrance fee. We asked if this would cost us more and she said well yes it would. We then said no thanks (feeling a touch guilty), as the entrance fee is quite enough already (at least we're supporting them by visiting) and paid for what we thought was the regular enteance fee.

Later on in the day we checked our receipt and had been charged an extra couple of pounds for gift aid anyway. Money that we probably would have spent in the cafe or gift shop.
It turned out to be an expensive day out.

MX5huggy

alexlyne wrote: »

Plus, if you went to a church or something, and put a quid in a donation box, can you also stick in a declaration so they can giftaid that pound?

Yes, and please do, the church probably have small envelopes for just this.