Charities may have to repay some of their JustGiving VAT rebate

Finance | Kirsty Weakley | 27 Jun 2012

Charities that received a VAT rebate from HMRC via JustGiving earlier this month may have to repay some of it.

More than 9,000 charities received a payment after HMRC conceded that transaction fees on JustGiving should not be subject to VAT, but charities may have already recovered some of this through annual VAT returns, according to Andrew Norman, VAT manager at Buzzacott.

Norman told civilsociety.co.uk that the proportion of the rebate charities had to pay would “depend on how much if any they had recovered from their VAT”, but added that “I would not expect any charity to have recovered the full amount”.

He said the adjustment should be made “through a correction on the charity’s next VAT return” and that it is something that charities should be aware of for when they are next “visited by Customs for a VAT inspection”.

JustGiving confirmed that some charities would be affected and directed civilsociety.co.uk to HMRC’s public notice which outlines how to report an error.

If the amount is less than £10,000 charities should "include the value of that adjustment on your current VAT return". If the amount is more than £10,000 then organisations need to fill out form VAT 652. Click here for the full notice from HMRC.

Charities not received rebate

Norman added that he was “aware of a couple” of charities who had not received a rebate from JustGivng.

JustGiving said that all charities should have received payment on 13 June. Charities that are still members should have had the rebate paid directly to their accounts and those that are not were sent a cheque.

A spokeswoman said: “If for any reason a charity believes they may be eligible and has not had any communication from us by 30th June 2012, they should email us on rebate@justgiving.com so we can investigate.”

Charities eligible for a rebate are those that raised money using the platform between 1 September 2004 and 31 December 2010. HMRC agreed that VAT should not be charged on transaction fees for donations in December 2010 and JustGiving stopped charging it in January 2011.

Directory: Buzzacott LLP | JustGiving

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.