The Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) took effect from 6th April 2013 and was updated in April 2019. This means you are able to claim on Loose Plate donations of £30 or less, up to a maximum of £8,000 per tax year thats an extra £2,000 to your parish!
Small donations are defined as;
a gift of cash of £30 or less, in any currency, given and banked in the UK for which no Gift Aid Declaration has been given and for which no benefits are received. Cheques, Standing Orders, Electronic transfers and CAF cheques do not qualify under the Scheme as small donations.
HMRC have very strict rules and to ensure you qualify you will have to have been in the scheme and made 2 consecutive claims for at least 2 years. There is also a matching rule, whereby amount of Gift Aid payments received has to be 10% of the amount claimed via GASDS.
If you are in the Diocesan Central Scheme you dont need to worry about these rules - we will monitor them in the office for you and let you know if there is a problem, in plenty of time!
GASDS is not a tax relief, but public spending. It is not Gift Aid - although it will be claimed with Gift Aid on the same claim form!. This does not mean the end of Gift Aid - there are 2 separate schemes.
We are working on Recording and Counting Sheets and these will be available below, however HMRC have not published their final regulations for the scheme yet so these are subject to change.
- Recording Sheet H
- Recommended Weekly Counting Sheet