Gift Aid > Making a Claim

Making a Claim

You should not make a claim for any donation unless and until a Gift Aid Declaration is in place, and your church has registered with HMRC. You will also need to obtain two forms from HMRC at Bootle. You will need:

• R68 (Claim) – the main claim form.
• R68 (Gift Aid) – the schedule on which details of Gift Aid donations are entered.

Firstly, you should complete the R68 (Gift Aid) schedule. You will need to complete a separate one if your claim covers more than one accounting (calendar) year. There are some instructions on the form itself. Ensure you fill in your parish’s Inland Revenue reference number. There should be an entry on the form for each Declaration for which you are making a claim. Put the donors in alphabetical order. Enter the total donations for each donor and the date on which you received the last donation from the donor. For regular envelope givers, this will often be the last Sunday in the period. However, not everyone will have attended and given on that Sunday! For Standing Order givers, this date will not be a Sunday.

Because some people give by more than one method, and to more than just the General fund, you may need to summarise the claim for each donor in your records, before you enter the amounts on the Inland Revenue form, for example:

Once all the donors are listed, on the back of the form, enter the total donations received. You can then calculate the tax to be claimed, using the calculation given on the form. This will be

Total Donations x __current basic rate of tax___
                             100 – current basic rate of tax

You should check your arithmetic before you send off the claim forms.

Next, complete the R68 (Gift Aid) form. It is fairly self explanatory. Things to note are as follows:

• Ensure the label on the form is correct, and complete in full the form on the front of the form. This needs to be done by the Authorised person e.g. the treasurer or Gift Aid Secretary. This is the person that has been notified to HMRC - find out more.
• For PCC's, the accounting period ends on 31st December each year. Note that if your claim covers more than one accounting period, you will need to submit a separate schedule for each calendar (accounting) year.
• On the reverse of the claim form, summarise the amount claimed on the Gift AId schedules.
• For PCC's you should tick that "this Charity is exempt from tax under sections 505, 507 or 508 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988"
• Finally complete the section relating to how you would like the repayment made.

You should photocopy all the forms in case of a query from the Inland Revenue. Send the forms to the address given on the form. You should receive your repayment cheque in due course.