HM Revenue & Customs has published a list of the most common tax mistakes made by charities, as part of the work of its Charities Outreach Team.
The statistics from the outreach team have been published by the Charities Tax Group, show that the main error made by charities in relation to their taxes revolves around organisations changing personnel or appointing new employees, without changing their details or letting HMRC know.
The second most common mistake made by charities, according to HMRC, is “claiming excessive Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS)” income.
HMRC said that many charities “enter the total donations collected rather than the total eligible amount” and said that “if charities collect donations greater than the maximum specified amount for the year, (£5,000 up to 5 April and £8,000 from 6 April 2016) they should only enter the maximum amount rather than the actual amount collected”.
Out-of-date GASDS claims are the third most common tax mistake made by charities, followed in fourth by “errors completing a paper claim form” and finally charities trying to claim “non-qualifying donations” – those which are “out of date, joint donations, company donations, etc”.
The statistics also reveal that the most common query the team received from charities revolved around asking for “help completing application and change of details forms”.
It also received questions around the progress of claims, advice on claiming GASDS, what qualified as “eligible donations” and whether or not charities need to complete a Corporation Tax return.
HMRC’s Charities Outreach team was set up in 2014. The team also runs a charities helpline which, according to the statistics, has fielded over 40,000 calls from charities since April 2016.
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