A charity treasurer who tried to steal more than £330,000 in a Gift Aid repayment fraud has been jailed for three years – read the full HMRC press release here.

The innocent charity was unaware of the activity by the volunteer treasurer and only became suspicious when large sums started arriving into the accounts, before they were moved on.

HMRC launched an investigation in 2017 and discovered the amount falsely claimed would have required £1.3 million in legitimate donations. But the charity’s bank accounts showed nowhere near those amounts had been deposited. The treasurer even made false claims in the name of the charity’s chief executive, which were 30 times higher than the donations that had actually been made. When the banking access was removed, he made two attempts to change the charity’s nominated bank account into an account under his control.

Information about any type of tax fraud can be reported to HMRC online at www.gov.uk/report-an-unregistered-trader-or-business.