Universal Credit and charity giving

Leylah1984

I recently changed over from tax credits to universal credit. With tax credits I was able to take charity giving off my income. 
If I give to a registered charity - can I do the same with universal credit? Tia

huckster

For UC it has to be charitable donations made via your employers payroll.

"any sums withheld as donations to an approved scheme under Part 12 of ITEPA (payroll giving) by a person required to make deductions or repayments of income tax under the PAYE Regulations"


The relevant UC regulation is linked to below.

The Universal Credit Regulations 2013 (legislation.gov.uk)

peteuk

Basically your UC will be based on your income, what you do after that point is totally up to you but it wont take it into account. 

For example - if your monthly income is £1000 and you give away £100, UC wont care what you do with the £1000 of income, but they wont then go oh your disposable income is now £900 so thats what we will do.   

However if you give £100 to charity via your wage slip then your take home will be £900 which DWP will then see. 

Only other time DWP will be interested if youve £5999 in capital and suddenly give away £1000 to a charity to avoid going over the £6K limit.   But if you’re donating each month it should be viewed differently. 

Spoonie_Turtle

peteuk said:

Only other time DWP will be interested if youve £5999 in capital and suddenly give away £1000 to a charity to avoid going over the £6K limit.   But if you’re donating each month it should be viewed differently. 

For the avoidance if doubt, this only might apply if you give away that money from your savings.  But technically since you didn't have capital over the threshold to affect your UC then they'd have a hard time doing anything about it.

What you do with your income in the mounting in which you receive it, before it becomes savings is still completely irrelevant and they have no legal basis on which to be interested, let alone penalise anyone.