Breast Cancer Campaign has called for a change to gift aid legislation to allow employers to sign a single gift aid declaration form for all their staff, as it claims it is missing out on “hundreds of thousands of pounds” each year.

The charity says it raises almost £2m through donations in the workplace through its fundraising event, Wear it Pink, but estimates that it only receives 10 per cent of what it should be able to claim in gift aid.

Breast Cancer Campaign said: “Breast Cancer Campaign is calling for a simple change in gift aid legislation, allowing employers to sing a single declaration form for all their employees taking part in workplace fundraising events to confirm they are employed by the company and are therefore, likely to be paying enough tax to cover their small donations.”

Ahead of the government’s spending review Breast Cancer Campaign is also calling on the government to keep funding the Charity Research Support Fund. Mia Rosenblatt, head of policy and campaigns at Breast Cancer Campaign, described both sources of funding as “lifelines” and called on people to sign up to its campaign which will send an email to your MP about gift aid and the fund.

Consultation due

Last month the government announced that it will open a consultation on digital giving this month, with a view to legislate in the Finance Bill 2014. The main aim of the consultation is to look at ways donors could fill out one declaration that would cover donations on a specific channel.

Katherine Smithson, policy and public affairs officer at CFG, said: “What is interesting about this suggestion is that it is not specifically about digital giving but that it applies some of those ideas around increasing flexibility that the Treasury is looking to explore.” She said, that while the proposal may not be feasible under current legislation, the suggestion that individuals could sign one gift aid claim form that could cover work based giving for one year is "similar to some of the ideas being explored in the current review".

She explained that: “The employer can confirm that person has paid enough tax to be eligible for gift aid but not necessarily that they wanted it to go to the charity.”

Smithson added that the new system for claiming gift aid may be a hindrance, she said: “With the new Charities Online system the rules are quite specific about how you do aggregated claims. Because it does follow a strict framework it does make it more difficult for charities trying to think outside the box. However, it’s important that we feed these ideas to HM Treasury and HMRC over the next few months.”

John Hemming, chairman of Charity Tax Group, said: “We welcome Breast Cancer Campaign's positive contribution to the debate on how to simplify and improve the gift aid system.

“Nevertheless, CTG is conscious of the technical complexities any proposal needs to address before it can be workable. The consultation on digital giving is due soon, and we are looking forward to working with BCC and others to explore innovative yet technically robust ways to improve the gift aid declaration and gift aid processes for charities.”

A spokeswoman for the Institute of Fundraising added that the upcoming review is “an excellent opportunity for charities to feed in their innovative ideas to improve gift aid and maximise benefit for the sector”.