HMRC has granted five charities with “exceptional extenuating circumstances” an extension to file their gift aid claims online.

Speaking at the Charity VAT and Tax Conference, part of the Charity Finance Summit, earlier this week, Peter Mills, Charities Online programme manager, said 14 charities approached him ahead of the 30 September deadline to start using the new system for claiming gift aid.

He revealed that of these: “Nine have been sorted without a problem and five have been given an extension because of their exceptional circumstances, but there will be no general extension.”

Since HMRC stopped accepting the old forms, he said that the number of old claim forms (R68i) it has had to send back is "running at single figures per day”.

To date, 40,000 charities have registered to use the system, and Mills explained that many will not have needed to do so yet because “60 per cent of organisations file once a year”.

The majority, 80 per cent, are using the spreadsheet option, with 10 per cent opting to file via their databases and 10 per using the new paper form.

By next April, which will the first anniversary of Charities Online, HMRC predicts that 55,000 charities will have registered and that by the end of September (one year after the deadline to switch to the online system), 70,000 will be signed up.

Change of details app in the pipeline

Mills also revealed that HMRC was currently working on a way to enable charities to submit a change-of-details form using an iPhone app.

He said: “Registrations variations are not online yet but we are hoping to deliver them by something called iPhones in 2014. Watch this space.”

Joint Charity Commission and HMRC registration

Mills said that while the Charity Commission and HMRC were in discussions about the “feasibility” of having one registration form it would not “be delivered before 2015”.

The prospect of joint registration was raised by Lord Hodgson in his review of the Charities Act. Last May he revealed that progress was being made.