HMRC’s Charities Outreach team has provided some feedback on the use of the service, a summary of the main queries received and a review of the top errors with claims.

Statistics from April 2016:

• The Charities helpline (0300 123 1073) has dealt with over 40,000 calls
• 2,000 of these calls have been referred to the Outreach team for further action
• The Outreach team has also dealt with 10,000 claims that have fallen on worklists due to errors
• The Outreach team has also dealt with over 600 items of post and correspondence
• The Outreach team has delivered 9 presentations with an average of 25 charities attending each presentation (this included a CTG seminar in Birmingham)

The main queries received from charities related to: 

• Help completing application and change of details forms
• Chasing progress of claims
• Advice on the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS)
• Advice on ‘eligible donations‘
• ‘Whether charities need to complete a Corporation Tax (CT) return

Top errors with claims:

• Wrong authorised official/agent/nominee submitting the claim
  • Charities may change personnel or appoint a new agent/nominee but fail to complete a change of details form (ChV1) to let HMRC know
• Claiming excessive GASDS
  • Although there is an annual limit of £5,000 up to 5 April 2016 and £8,000 from 6 April 2016 charities often include greater amounts on their claims – conversations with charities suggest that many enter the total donations collected rather than the total eligible amount. If charities collect donations greater than the maximum specified amount for the year, they should only enter the maximum amount rather than the actual amount collected.
• Out of date GASDS claims
  • Slight confusion with claiming for previous years – GASDS runs tax year to tax year and charities can only claim back for the previous two years – whereas Gift aid runs from accounting periods and charities can claim for the previous four years.
• Errors completing a paper claim form
  • The form is scanned and read electronically – charities often put lines through boxes or ‘N/A’ but the guidance notes advise that these boxes should be left blank
  • Additional correspondence is sometimes included – the guidance notes ask charities not include additional correspondence
  • ‘Aggregated donation’ box ticked as well as the name of the donor. Charities should not tick ‘aggregated’ when they have a regular donor – just the name address, date of donation and amount will do as per guidance notes
  • Missing information. The forms are first sent to HMRC’s scanning office. Forms with errors are then extracted and sent to the Outreach team which can cause a delay in repayments
• Non-qualifying donations. Out of date, joint donations, company donations etc