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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Aibu to ask this gift aid question

20 replies

londonrach · 09/01/2018 07:28

Had abit of a clear out yesterday and dropped one bag off at the nearest charity shop which happened to be bhf. Anyway they asked the usual gift aid question and i answered i dont as self employed and having had dd my income is below the tax level. Volunteer said not to worry ill add your bag in with this other donation. I left thinking im not sure thats allowed. Kicking myself last night for not questioning it but i had dd in a pushchair and other things on my mind.

OP posts:
SandyDenny · 09/01/2018 07:30

Are you thinking they were doing the giftaid wrong?

GetYourRocksOff · 09/01/2018 07:31

Yeah that's not really right.

Original poster
londonrach · 09/01/2018 07:33

Yes sandy. If they doing that with every donation not gift aided they could claim tax back on donations not given by the person donating.

OP posts:
drivingmisspotty · 09/01/2018 07:34

You're right that's not allowed as I assume she means she will be claiming gift aid in someone elses name for something they have not donated. In theory the person who donated the other bag could go over the threshold due to that. But it's pretty unlikely they will and unlikely anyone will ever find out or there will be ant problem for the charity or the other donor.

Perhaps you could drop a note to the shop manager just explaining what had happened and asking for clarification around the rules/their practice.

MaidOfStars · 09/01/2018 07:36

Perhaps less an issue the charity maximising tax reclaimed - cheeky, loophole-y, but I can’t get worked up about that.

Very much an issue for the person who donated the giftaided stuff, to have unexpected tax reclaimed on their behalf. You can only gift aid so much each tax year, depending on your earnings. If you exceed it, HMRC bill you.

ApacheEchidna · 09/01/2018 08:06

That's really terrible practice for the shop to do that. HMRC really do bill the donor if their Gift Aid total across the year is too much. When I worked for a charity that happened to one of our donors. Really unethical behaviour from the charity to risk this.

Original poster
londonrach · 10/01/2018 12:05

Popped into the charity shop today, that volunteer wasnt there. Lost my nerve as very busy and left without saying anything. I know of someone who was billed for going of her tax level too hence why i wish id said something at the time. The time has passed now.

OP posts:
alltoomuchrightnow · 10/01/2018 13:18

I ran charity shops for years. It's definitely fraud. However, my colleagues used to sometimes do this (and I might have turned a blind eye at times), but only added on a few bits onto a big GA donation. The trouble is we had massive GA targets and it earned the charity so much more extra income especially when the shop was struggling. Usually though, we'd add on the odd good item onto our own personal Gift Aid, (I should add that this GA was always donated back to the shop... )

alltoomuchrightnow · 10/01/2018 13:20

It's extremely unlikely someone would go over the threshold, they'd have to be donating diamonds (which sold for the right price) for that to happen. It's crazy though that she admitted that to you as she could lose her job over that

GetShitDone · 10/01/2018 13:23

How can they claim gift aid on items? Surely it's only for money donated?

WineAndTiramisu · 10/01/2018 13:25

GetShitDone they sell your items on your behalf, then ask you to 'donate' the money back to them, which they can then claim the gift aid on.
Can backfire if someone wants the cash back though which happened to a place near us!

Original poster
londonrach · 10/01/2018 13:57

Alltoomuch..depends on how much tax you pay but i did hear of someone who paid the £20 shortfall and now doesnt donate. As i said im not going to do anything as the time has passed. The person was a volunteer so probably didnt know how gift aid works

OP posts:
Original poster
londonrach · 10/01/2018 13:57

Wine....people dont do that surely!!!

OP posts:
ApacheEchidna · 10/01/2018 15:06

Return goods to charity shops? Certainly they do, and of the item was a gift aided item it is the person who donated the item to the shop who is liable to provide the money for the refund.

bruffin · 10/01/2018 15:12

I worked for a charity and 1 donor ticked the gift aid box for a 10k donation and turned she was not paying tax. HMRC wanted to reclaim the gift aid from her but we ended up paying it back for her.

HopefulForToday · 10/01/2018 15:23

Google tells me you can gift aid donations up to 4 times the amount of tax you pay in a year.

You'd need to be donating over £7k net out of a £20k gross salary to go over the threshold, for example. I would imagine it's vanishingly rare that someone would be donating such a large % of their earnings so as to actually exceed it.

I doubt an extra bag or two of donated charity shop tat would push someone over the limit. Technically I suppose you would call it tax fraud. In rl I can't imagine why you'd get worked up about it Hmm or why you'd care.

ApacheEchidna · 10/01/2018 21:19

It's not that unusual HopefulFor - where a couple consist of one high earner whose salary covers all household costs and luxuries, and the second person of the couple has a "little job" to keep themselves busy - they might well only earn only a little above the tax threshold themselves and might well end up donating more than they ought to under gift aid.

bruffin · 10/01/2018 21:25

I think the case i mensioned above was when the donor had an insurance policy or some other tax free investment mature and donayed 10k out of it.

alltoomuchrightnow · 10/01/2018 23:20

yes, people can and do ask for cash back, some of my actual colleagues got sacked for this (doing it with their own donations or using other's donations to top up their gift aid.. extremely dodgy - they obviously saw it as an easy earner ... until my boss released the list of names of staff in our area doing this!)

alltoomuchrightnow · 10/01/2018 23:23

Not physical cash. I meant the money made on Gift Aid, they (the donor) can claim back. The charity has made money from the donation but NOT the extra that Gift Aid would have given them. I think they probably got a cheque back for it.
So say a table was donated and sold for £500 (rare but happened in my company) the donor could claim back , £50 I think? something like that(didn't actually happen as they didn't want it back, but to give an example on a larger item)

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