HM Revenue and Customs will soon publish new research on Gift Aid with the aim of improving increasing uptake of the scheme, according to Treasury minister responsible for charities.
Jane Ellison, financial secretary to the Treasury, warned delegates at the Charity Tax Group (CTG) Annual Tax Conference yesterday that HMRC would not be able to meet all the sector’s requests for financial support.
In her keynote speech, she said there was a “generous system” of tax relief for charities already and her department were focusing on ensuring more organisations were taking advantage of it.
“HMRC has also commissioned some research to look at how we can make sure Gift Aid is better understood and claimed correctly,” she said.
“This research should be published in the next couple of months and I hope that will stimulate a good conversation.
“In the meantime, HMRC is beefing up their efforts to get charities claiming what they can. They are going to be writing to tens of thousands of charities about how they can do that.”
Ellison called on the sector to share knowledge with the smaller charities regarding what financial help is already out there.
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Sector representatives have urged the government to consider reducing the VAT paid by charities post-Brexit, freed from current EU requirements to charge standard and minimum rates for some items.
But Ellison said in her speech many different industries had made similar calls, with bids to the Treasury for potential changes to VAT post-Brexit amounting to £31bn.
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