Gift Aid

The Gift Aid scheme is available to anyone who pays tax.  It is the easiest way for River to recover the basic rate income tax that you have paid on the gift.  As a tax payer, it costs you nothing but if you don’t pay tax or stop paying tax and don’t tell us, the Government will ask you for the tax directly.

Basically,  for every £10 you give – on which you will have already paid tax – River will be able to claim an additional £2.50 directly from the Inland Revenue. You don’t pay anything more, the Government just gives us the tax that you have paid instead of keeping it for themselves.

In order for River to claim back the tax from the Government, you must make a Gift Aid declaration which states that you have paid the tax on what you give and River must be able to link your gift to a signed declaration.
 
The three types of Declaration which the church uses are:-

(i)    Gift Aid Declaration Form (click here to download) – this contains your name /address and a declaration. It is open-ended in that it provides for all gifts from the date of the declaration to be Gift-Aidable.

Cheque: Once you have signed the form, a signed cheque is enough to link the 
                donation to the Declaration – you do not need to use an envelope.

Cash:      You need only put your name and date on the envelope so we can link the gift
                to your Declaration form.

(ii) Online Gift Aid Declaration (click here) - an online, paper-free, 'green' version of the form above. Much better! It can cater for one-off gifts, all gifts from the date of Declaration indefinitely into the future, or all gifts for the past 6 years, and today, and indefinitely into the future.

Cheque: Once you have submitted the online form, a signed cheque is enough to link the donation to the Declaration – you do not need to use an envelope.

Cash:      You need only put your name and date on the envelope so we can link the gift to your Declaration.

(iii) Gift Aid Envelopes – this declaration covers only the contents of the envelope.

Cheque: If you have not completed the full Declaration form (i), you will need to complete the declaration on the envelope.

Cash:     If you haven’t completed the full Declaration form (i), you will need to complete the declaration on the envelope.
               If you have completed the full Declaration form (i), you need only put your name and date on the envelope so we can link the gift to the Declaration form.

If you haven’t yet completed a Gift Aid Declaration form (paper or online version) you may find it simpler to complete one so that you don’t need to fill in the full declaration on the Gift Aid Envelope every time you make a gift.

For more details about gift aid including information re: higher rate tax payers,  family tax credit, and treating gift-aided donations as if made in previous tax year,  please click here.