If you’re a UK taxpayer, we can claim the tax back on your donation. It’s worth an extra 25 pence for every £1 you donate. That means that every £20 you give us is actually worth £25. But only if you take two minutes to fill in our Gift Aid form.
- If you’re donating money, please complete this form
- If you’re donating items to our shops, please complete this form
Please note that if you want us to claim Gift Aid on both monetary and shop donations, you’ll need to fill in both forms. Once you’ve returned your forms, we’ll claim Gift Aid on all donations you make to us until you tell us to stop. We’ll also be able to claim Gift Aid on any donations you’ve made in the last four years.
Gift Aid raises over £200,000 for Hospiscare each year. That’s enough to run all of our services for almost 10 days!
Are you eligible for Gift Aid?
Yes, as long as you pay income or capital gains tax in the UK on at least one of the following:
- Earnings, whether you’re an employee or self-employed
- Your pension
- Interest on savings
- Stocks and shares
- Dividends on investments
- Other income, eg from renting out a house
(You need to be paying enough tax to cover the Gift Aid claimed on your behalf by all the charities you support, not just Hospiscare.)
What do we need to claim Gift Aid?
- A completed Gift Aid form including your salutation (eg Mr, Mrs, Ms etc), first name, surname and home address
- A donation made from a personal bank or building society account OR a donation of items that belong to you
- For you to be paying income tax or capital gains tax which at least equals the amount Hospiscare and other charities and community amateur sports clubs will claim on your behalf in that tax year (6th April one year to 5th April the next).
Once you’ve become a Gift Aid donor, please let us know if you stop paying tax or if you change your name or address, so that we can update our records.
Why are some donations not eligible for Gift Aid?
We won’t be able to claim the tax back if:
- the donation was on behalf of someone else or a group of people
- items that you donated did not belong to you (eg you took them to the shop for a friend)
- the donation was on behalf of a company
- you got something in return for the donation, like a raffle ticket
Claiming Gift Aid on sponsored events
If you’re collecting money through sponsorship, the people who sponsor you can boost their donations through Gift Aid. They will need to be UK taxpayers and meet all of the conditions above.
To allow us to claim Gift Aid, sponsors must be giving their own money. They won’t need to fill in a Gift Aid form, but the sponsorship form must:
- Be an official Hospiscare sponsorship form printed with the latest Gift Aid declaration
- Include your name and address
- Include each sponsor’s full name and home address if they want us to claim Gift Aid on their behalf
- Be in the sponsors’ own handwriting
Please make sure that everyone sponsoring you is aware of the restrictions on Gift Aid and do check that they’ve filled out the form correctly – people have a tendency to skip the address field or even use made up names. We’ve had the odd ‘Donald Duck’ and ‘Mickey Mouse’ saying they’re eligible for Gift Aid!
What to do if Hospiscare is contributing to your entry fee
In some cases, Hospiscare pays for some of the cost of entering an event or challenge. This counts as you receiving something in return for your donation, so we can’t claim Gift Aid on your donations or those of your close family members. (A close family member is defined as your spouse or civil partner, your parents, your children and grandchildren and your siblings, as well as their spouses or civil partners.)
In these circumstances, if you set up an online giving page you should tick the box that asks ‘is your charity contributing to the cost of your fundraising?’
Claiming Gift Aid on items donated to our shops
If you’re a UK tax payer and you donate an item to a Hospiscare shop, we can claim Gift Aid when we sell it. So, if we sell your sofa for £100, we’ll actually get £125. It’s all done through a special barcode with a unique ID number that we add to the price tag. And we can claim Gift Aid whether you pay income tax, capital gains tax or both.
Please complete this Gift Aid form if you’re donating items to our shops
For more information
If you’re unsure whether you’re eligible for Gift Aid or have any other questions, please do contact us. You may also find the HMRC Gift Aid page useful.
