Giftaid question

andyroo12456

I have just completed my (first time ) 2025-26 tax return. I owe a few hundred £ . I would like to carry back giftaid for the charities I support.
My tax bill was entirely made up of tax on dividends. HMRC state Giftaid can only be made if the donor has paid income tax or Capital Gains Tax for the relevant year. My tax return does state I owe £xxx “income tax “ . Am I ok to give Giftaid ?

Thank you

Isthisforreal99

If you are talking about carrying back Gift Aid then I assume you paid the charity in 26/27? Do you expect to pay tax in 26/27?

andyroo12456

I have made donations in the current 2026-27 tax year and yes I expect to make a tax return for 2026-27

Sorry if I wasn’t clear : I made charitable donations in the tax year 2025-26 without giving Giftaid but would now like the charities to apply for Giftaid for the 2025-26 tax year

Grumpy_chap

You can only elect to gift aid the donations at the time the donations are made.

There is a mechanism to make donations this year under gift aid and have the donations treated as made last year. The rules are detailed and I don't know them. You might already be too late - any claim has to be at first submission of tax return.

Savvy_Sue

I'm on my phone so downloading a sample form isn't easy, and it's a few years since I was directly involved in GA, but ask the charities concerned for a GA form because my memory is that you can do a retrospective form. It doesn't change what you've given, and if you're a higher rate taxpayer it may not change your liability.

Process:

If you didn't do a GA declaration at the time, you can do one now. And the form definitely USED to give you the options of

• A single gift plus
• all future gifts and / or
• All gifts over the last (from memory) 4 years

The thing is, if someone sent us a donation and hadn't done a GA declaration, we'd write to thank them, AND ask if they were able to GA. If that's not retrospectively GAing, I'm not sure what is.

Grumpy_chap

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82065593#Comment_82065593

I don't think that is retrospectively Gift Aiding, at least not in tax terms, because the form and the declaration is processed within the same accounting reference period.

For the OP to retrospectively Gift Aid his donations made last tax year would require him to write to the charities concerned, for the charities to identify the donation records and then amend their previous submissions for tax / Gift Aid claims. And then the OP would have to amend their SA return (which might not have been done thus far).

Re-opening past transactions will be labour intensive and quite likely cost the charities more than simply not having those donations Gift Aided. Unless the value of the donations in consideration are substantial.

Savvy_Sue

Fair enough, it may not be cost effective for the charities but we don't know the amounts involved, and for a small charity it might not take long to do a search for historic transactions. Plus the charity would then have the GA form for future donations.

But it was the 'can't be done' comments which I felt needed challenging...

Grumpy_chap

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82066427#Comment_82066427

But do the tax rules actually allow this to be done once the returns have been closed for the financial accounting period by the charity?

andyroo12456

Thank you for your input

I am contacting the charities to ask them to clarify. As I understand it , from HMRC website, I can ask the charities to retrospectively claim gift aid for the previous 4 years (but in my case it would only be for 2025-26) so I would not expect to have to amend my 2025-26 tax return.

I will update when I have received replies from the charities

Many thanks

Savvy_Sue

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82066467#Comment_82066467

Not entirely sure, but given that the question asked on the form (certainly always used to) references previous tax years, it would be perverse if that were not possible.

Edited to add: I've googled, because it annoys me when I seem to be out of date on this kind of stuff.

https://www.gov.uk/claim-gift-aid/how-to-claim

When you must claim

Your deadline to claim Gift Aid depends on how your charity is set up.

You need to claim for a donation within 4 years of the end of the financial period you received it in. This is:

• the tax year (6 April to 5 April) if you’re a trust
• your accounting period if your charity is a community amateur sports club (CASC), a Charity Incorporated Organisation (CIO) or a limited company

You must claim on cash donations under the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme within 2 years of the end of the tax year that the donations were collected in.

andyroo12456

I have just had a very helpful chat with HMRC on Facebook Messenger. Both my questions were answered in 5 minutes!
Yes dividend tax comes under the income tax heading and as I have a tax liability over and above the allowance I can ask the charities to claim Gift Aid up to the amount of dividend tax I have paid.

The two charities I have contacted tell me that they can in principle retroclaim Gift Aid on donations made over the last four years . In my case I only re- started paying tax last year so the charities can only retroclaim for tax year 2025-26.