School fund - gift aid claim

Loup79

My son has just started at the local church primary school. Due to budget cuts, the school is asking parents to make a voluntary monthly donation to the school.

The donations are currently being paid into the PTA bank account and the PTA has charitable status.

The longer term plan was to set up a separate charity called X School Fund but this has not been done yet

The PTA accounts say it was collecting money as an agent of X School Fund (I’m not sure how it can do this if the fund doesn’t yet exist and has no legal status).

I think gift aid could be claimed in the donations as they are being laid to the PTA charity (with the need to get appropriate tax payer declaration from each donor). Only sticking point is the strange comment re agency in the PTA accounts.

Does anyone have any advice?

Savvy_Sue

Talk to the HMRC Gift Aid helpline?

rach_k

Have you spoken to the PTA treasurer or the school's finance officer?

Without meaning to be rude, I often find that parents new to a school come up with 'amazing' ideas that they are desperate to do for us, but they haven't been at the school long enough to know what's already going on/been tried/being looked into and they rarely bother to ask before starting to make their plans. If you ask them first, they may already have it in hand, or have a reason for not doing it.