Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-11-10.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, in cases where a person has registered a donation to a charity for gift aid but ended the year below the income threshold for income tax, whether it is the policy of HM Revenue and Customs to reclaim the gift aid from the (a) donor or (b) charity; and if he will make a statement.

Damian Hinds

Individual donors are responsible for ensuring that they have paid sufficient tax to cover any Gift Aid reclaimed on their donations.

In practice, where HMRC identifies tax to cover issues as a result of its compliance activity with a charity, it may invite the charity to make good any shortfall on behalf of their donors. The charity is not legally obliged to repay any over-claimed Gift Aid and the responsibility always remains that of the donor.

Details of how much Gift Aid is reclaimed separately from donors and charities is not available.