Are you doing it already? If so, wonderful! If not and you are a U.K. taxpayer then do please read on………..
In the last financial year your Parish Church was able to reclaim through your ‘gift aided’ financial contributions, more than £17,000 from the Inland Revenue and it didn’t cost the donors one penny more!
We write this article because we are pretty confident that there are many more members of our Christian Giving scheme who, as taxpayers, could gift aid their pledges, at no extra cost or commitment to themselves and by so doing help the Church benefit by an extra 28%.
So how does it work and how can I support what the Government, yes, even the Government is keen for us to do, support and encourage charitable giving. We, the Church, are classed and registered as a Charity.
Gift aiding your financial commitment is not only very simple to do, it also presents us with an easy way to maximise our stewardship giving and for the giver, very little paperwork!
Below is a simple ‘checklist’, that will help to determine if you can Gift aid the amount you give both now and in the future.
- You must be a U.K taxpayer being assessed for Income Tax at the standard rate of 22%. If you do not pay tax then you cannot ‘gift aid’ your donations.
- You can Gift aid up to but not above the total amount you pay in income tax and/or capital gains tax.
- The only documentation required to ‘legalise’ your wish to gift aid is to sign a very simple document bearing your name and address. This declares that ‘I want the P.C.C. to reclaim tax on all my donations’.
- You have only to sign up for Gift aiding to the Church and/or a charity once. Your commitment will continue in successive years but can be cancelled by the donor at any time.
- In a case where married couples contribute jointly, one partner pays income tax but the other does not, it is very simple to ‘split’ the giving so that the one not liable to income tax gives an amount which is below the tax threshold leaving the tax liable partner to give the balance.
The benefits to the Church and other charities to which you make gifts are substantial. For every £100 you ‘gift aid’, an extra £28.20p. can be reclaimed from the Inland Revenue! Scale this up say to a contribution of £1,000 and the amount of reclaim rises to £282!
For those who financially support not just your Church but other charitable organisations I think it is a
good idea to keep a list of all your donations so that you do not risk ‘gift aiding’ more than the total amount you would otherwise pay as income tax.
Therefore, If you are not already gift aiding and are liable to pay income tax, please will you
The Stewardship Committee