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, how much gift aid has been (a) requested and (b) reclaimed from (i) donors and (ii) charities in circumstances in which people making registered charitable donations for gift aid ended the year below the income tax threshold in each of the last five years.

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.