Gift Aid Records

JLRetired

How long do I need to retain Gift Aid records after submitting my tax return each year? I make regular donations to about 12 charities and ad hoc donations to a further 20 or so. Payments are via direct debit, credit card or cash so the record keeping is tedious!

[Deleted User]

This may help:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/367006/rk-bk1.pdf

JLRetired

Thank you. So 22 months. So I assume that this suffices for IHT purposes as well, I.e. I don’t need to keep 7 year’s worth?

[Deleted User]

I am not sure that that would be terribly helpful to the executors of the estate as gifts made up to seven years prior to death must be reported to HMRC.

This article should be helpful.

https://www.tltsolicitors.com/insights-and-events/insight/inheritance-tax-the-importance-of-planning-and-record-keeping/

littledog70

JLRetired said:

Thank you. So 22 months. So I assume that this suffices for IHT purposes as well, I.e. I don’t need to keep 7 year’s worth?

I would keep them personally. If your declaring gift aid to HMRC, and your only going by the fact you gave it to a charitty and signed a gift aid form, then due to having worked in charity and knowing how corrupt it can be, you could be at the mercy of a charity boss who orders people to cancels a gift aid donation to run it through under some other non gift aided campaign in order to hit shop targets.