To worry about adding Gift Aid as I don’t understand it!!!

[Curlywurly1975]

I’m self employed - sometimes earn enough to pay tax, sometimes not.

I want to donate to a friend’s fundraiser and this tax year I will earn enough to pay tax so want to add GA. But the wording says

“I accept the Terms and Privacy Policy and authorise them to add Gift Aid on to all my donations for this tax year, including donations made previously on which I had not opted to add Gift Aid. I accept Gift Aid will also be added onto donations made over the next tax year, when my authorisation is made between 1 March and 5 April, inclusive.”

But I don’t want them to add GA to previous years because I didn’t always pay tax - and might not in future years??!!

They're not referencing earlier tax years - you'd be agreeing to the current donation and any donations made earlier in this tax year to be included.

I'm self-employed, but usually don't earn enough to pax tax. I don't gift aid charity donations as you have to declare all the donations on your self-assessment and for me, it's not worth the extra hassle.

In your situation, I wouldn't add gift aid - too much concern about the declaration getting wrongly recorded and leading to problems in the future. FWIW I work for various charities and handle gift aid claims!

I gift aided the entrance fee to a house I visited a few years ago. I was pretty upset when HMRC fined me £46 because I had slipped out of the taxable income bracket.
No good deed goes unpunished.

God, it’s all a bit too complicated, isn’t it?!

I think for most people, who know they will pay tax each year, it's a no-brainer - tick the box and the charity gets 25% more at no extra cost to the donor. For higher rate tax-payers it's even more worthwhile as they can offset the difference between 25% and 40% on their tax bill.

But if you don't have enough income to pay tax, or not every year, it's simpler and safer just not to get involved.

@PurpleHiker I have an accountant do my taxes and I just declare the direct debit charities but also something like '£120 miscellaneous donations'. Never been an issue and I don't have to record every single £10 I give here and there or that I did gift aid on something.

You are right to check the wording as some charities do try to claim historically - I have seen up to 4 years and all future tax years. I was advised by the charity to cross that part out when I signed. I suppose that is then evidence that you cannot/do not want to gift aid for prior years.

But your friends fundraiser terms:

... authorise them to add Gift Aid on to all my donations for this tax year, including donations made previously on which I had not opted to add Gift Aid. So that would be a total of all donations DURING the current tax year.

...will also be added onto donations made over the next tax year, when my authorisation is made between 1 March and 5 April, inclusive. This is to cover "late/delayed" processing. When I donate to Oxfam (books) i get similar in their conformation emails regarding donations made during a similar period. Seems sensible. So this would apply - depends when the fundraiser takes place?

So just say no. What's the problem?

Also, do you want your tax to go to the donkey sanctuary/ stately home etc or to the NHS, schools etc. Your choice

Some of these things say that you want to pay gift aid to the charity from now for the next four years.

Chances are you'll forget you signed that so next year you might get stung too.

Honestly I'd just say no due to your Duffy unit situation.

Difficult

Oh shit I just gift aided on just giving, I’ve not paid tax this year. I’ve emailed them to get it reversed, hope I don’t get fined.

It's wether you will pay tax in the 24/25 year you need to worry about not wether you are paying tax on 31st Jan as that's for 23/24.

Also it's not a fine it's just you have to pay the tax that HMRC have given to the charity because you said you were a tax payer and you weren't.

ohhh ok fine! Thanks for the clarification

@Littletreefrog , thanks for the explanation. But the entrance fee for the house was about £7. How would that have attracted a £46 tax payment?

It wouldn't but without seeing the tax computation I wouldn't be able to explain where the £46 came from.