Tories call for automatic gift aid system as charities miss out on £100m

Fundraising | Becky Slack | 25 Sep 2008

The charity sector has missed out on more than £100m since the changes to the gift aid system were introduced in 2000, according to Greg Clark, shadow minister for the cabinet office.

Speaking at the Institute of Fundraising's London Region AGM earlier this month, he said he believed this was due in part to an onerous administration system. He suggested replacing it with a system that calculated gift aid according to the percentage of donors who are taxpayers.

"There is a degree of self-congratulation over gift aid," said Clark. Yet if you look at the statistics from the Treasury into how much money was given back to the sector before major changes to gift aid, what was available in 96/97 if it grew with inflation would be £100m more than what the sector gets now.

"To have people physically filling in paper when it serves no added value is something we can't accept. I don't see why we couldn't have a system where HMRC couldn't commission an annual survey to see how many donors are taxpayers and use the results from that rather than require people to fill out forms."

He also said that as few as 40 per cent of higher rate taxpayers bother to claim the tax relief they are entitled to on donations, and this relief should automatically go to the charity.

A lower-than-anticipated take-up of gift aid and complaints from the sector about the mechanics of claiming the tax relief has led the government to launch a consultation into the system. For more information and to give your views, visit www.hm-treasury.gov.uk. The closing date for the consultation is 30 September 2007.

Who's Who: Becky Slack

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