If a wife is a non-taxpayer & her husband pays tax at basic rate is there a way for her to gift aid her charitable donations without her husband having to give the money himself?
I cannot see a way myself but wait to be proved wrong.
Stuart Jones
Replies (3)
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Is this too obvious...?
If there is any legal reason why a wife and husband cannot arrange things so that she gives him the cash (without having to give any reason other than that he is her husband and she can give him cash if she wants to) and then he uses his credit card to donate, thus making it his donation, then I'm not sure I want to (a) get married and/or (b) live in this country. Not sure I want to do, or continue to do those things anyway, but hey, no harm in having yet another reason!
perhaps not
A Gift Aid declaration says that the donor 'must pay an amount of IT and/or CGT at least equal to the tax that the charity reclaims'. Ergo a non-taxpayer should not sign a Gift Aid declaration in respect of their donations.
Tom Burrows suggested method would work to the benefit of the charity, but that's not what the quesion asked.
And yes the IR do spot checks, and if the name on the cheque doesn't match the name on the form, the charity has to pay the tax back. And can suffer an assessment on its other Gift Aid claims if a sample contains such errors. And spends time an money investigating or correcting the matter. Which is a waste of their resources.
So please (please) do use Gift Aid, but make sure the paperwork's correct, or you could do more harm than good.