We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo! Blog Discussion

MSE_Martin

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's "We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo!" blog. Please read the blog first, as the discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo!" Blog

everyexpensespared

Is there a corollary here? If you are a higher rate tax payer and declare this £10 "donation" to the charity, the £12.80 (£10 + the £2.80 the charity has reclaimed) gets added to your basic rate (22%) tax allowance and so has really only cost you £7.68! I try to note all such donations (including membership fees to charities such as many Scout/Guide/etc groups and GiftAided church donations) to reduce liabaility to higher rate tax. The reduction to 20% basic rate will hit charities hard next year (the 28% reclaimable reduces to 25%) - we are being encouraged to increase our giving but for higher rate tax payers increasing their giving to make the charity receive the same as now will cost them nothing!

Edinburghlass_2

Both Martin's blog and the above post made about as much sense to me as the people trying to persuade you into this in the queue at Chester Zoo last week.

Quite happy to gift aid if it helps but as we were good MSE'ers we had vouchers to enable the kids to go free and so didn't qualify? What I did notice was on the Family Ticket the extra cost for donating was £4.50 on a £45 ticket which, as anyone with a family on a day out will know, is quite a whack extra.

nej

We went to London Zoo on monday. We used a 20% discount code we found on the internet, but paid the voluntary donation on each ticket.

But, I've got a better tip. Don't go at all - it was rubbish.

Joscar

We went to Windsor Castle last summer and they had an option to declare yourself a UK tax payer so they could claim the gift aid.

I have kept the tickets in my SA tax file with the intention of claiming the full amount (each adult ticket was 13.50) as a charity donation and get the higher rate tax back. I know it wont be much but I want to reduce my tax bill where I can.

There isn't any reason why I can't do this is there?

I do not recall anything about a 10% 'voluntary' donation

full-time-mum

What about when you pay with tesco days out tokens?
Presumably you can't gift aid that!

sparky61

I went to London Zoo on Bank holiday Monday, on 2 for 1 of course
Anyway, the queues were quite long but moved pretty quickly, we got to the ticket booth and were asked if we objected to the extra £1.50 and we said we were quite happy to pay this. I then said that we wanted to GiftAid and were told they couldn't do that as it was too busy, how stupid is that? One of the busiest days of the year and they lost out on God knows how much!!
I've sent an email to complain about it but no reply as yet.

Stompa

sparky61 wrote: »

I then said that we wanted to GiftAid and were told they couldn't do that as it was too busy, how stupid is that?

I can sort of understand their reasoning. When I went last year they were doing the GiftAid thing with everybody and it made the queues painfully slow - probably 2 or 3 minutes per customer (or group of customers).

sparky61

Stompa wrote: »

I can sort of understand their reasoning. When I went last year they were doing the GiftAid thing with everybody and it made the queues painfully slow - probably 2 or 3 minutes per customer (or group of customers).

I can understand them not wanting to antagonise customers by making them queue for longer than they have to, but they lost out on a lot of money by taking this decision.

In comparison, my daughter and her Fiance went to Bristol Zoo last weekend and while they were queueing they were asked if they'd like to Gift Aid the entrance fee and when they agreed they were given the form to fill in before they got to the ticket booth. So, time saved and a lot of extra funding gained.
:beer:

sophie_maxwell

If this was going to work for a church fundraising event where most taxpayers already have details registered for the weekly collection, would they still need to fill in the paperwork again when buying the ticket (with 10% donation) or would it be a case of 'adding it to the tab' so to speak? That would be much easier...