The Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill 2016-17 is scheduled to go through Report Stage and have its Third Reading in the House of Commons on 15 November 2016.

In advance of Report Stage, three new clauses and two amendments have been tabled by members of the opposition. The first two clauses would require HMRC to write an annual report on instances of GASDS fraud, providing evidence of the role of the Gift Aid matching rule in combatting it, and then would require that the matching rule be reviewed no later than end of tax year 2017-18.

Another proposed clause would get rid of the Gift Aid matching requirement entirely, as well as calling for the Treasury to publish an assessment of the impact this would have on charities and CASCs.

The last new clause would allow the Treasury by regulations to prescribe certain organisations from being included in the definition of “connected” for the purposes of the connected charities rule – specifically at this stage, Scouting, Girl Guiding and CCF charities.

The two proposed amendments once again call for cheques and electronic communication to be included within the scope of GASDS, and propose to give the Treasury the power to extend the Scheme to other payment methods in the future.

CTG Chairman John Hemming has commented:

“CTG welcomes the latest amendments tabled to the Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill, in advance of Report Stage. They support CTG’s calls for further simplification of the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme, in particular in relation to the matching rule and the clarification of the application of the connected charities rules for uniformed charities. We hope that the Government will take this opportunity to review the Scheme to ensure that take-up is maximised and safeguards against fraud are proportionate”.

CTG’s original briefing to the Bill Committee can be found here.

For more information about the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme, click here.