GASDS What's the rule?

GASDS What's the rule?

Didn't find your answer?

I am a treasurer of the local Air Cadets, a Scout Group and prepare accounts for my Rotary Club.

The Air Cadets have local squadrons who have a civilian committee to raise funds and provide most of the equipment. The committee is autonomous and the activities of each Squadron can be totally different but within the framework of the RAF guidelines. They claim Gift Aid on donations and we have claimed GASDS on bagpacks etc.

A squadron in Wales has had a GASDS claim knocked back by HMRC saying that it is connected to the national Air Cadets Organisation (ACO) and the £5,000 limit applies to all squadrons not each one. So ACO sent a letter to all treasurers saying 'don't claim and expect to repay what you have'. 

I see no difference between Cadets and Rotary in that we all do the same sort of things and have a national organisation supplying framework rules. Locally we do our own thing and are autonomous.

I checked with the Scout resource pages on the web and they have an even wackier slant on why you cannot claim GASDS on bag packs an carwashes outside the Scout Hut. They say that they are using the Community Hall scheme where you can claim £5,000 donations raised within each Community Hall you frequent so cannot claim the basic GASDS £5000 donations outside that hall.  That is not what the Gov.uk website is currently saying (it even shows an example of a claim for both).  I have written to them querying this odd advice.

The connected party rule, I am sure, was intended to trap enterprising trustees who subdivided their charities, not to trap the youth organisations. I am also worried that ACO may take so long to rumble this out with HMRC that Squadrons put off claiming will go out of time to claim

Anyone with experience here? Am I right?

Replies (1)

Please login or register to join the discussion.

avatar
By girlofwight
17th Apr 2015 21:14

The devil will be in the detail
Most Rotary clubs are completely autonomous, with permission to use Rotary name and logo. RIBI don't, as far as I recall, consolidate accounts.

However a lot of charities have branches that are quasi autonomous, there may be a local committee and a local bank account, but the legal entity is a master one, and accounts are consolidated. Eg I used to act for a charity with about 30 branches, each with committee, banking, own accounts/examination, but the accounts were then consolidated for charities commission, HMRC etc. Gift aid was a central function with one claim across all branches.

Thanks (0)