In order for a gift to be eligible for Gift Aid, it must meet several requirements.
Eligible
The following determine if a gift is eligible to be included in a claim:
- The donation must meet the HMRC Gift Aid guidelines
- The gift product is defined as a Charitable item
- The donor must have an active Gift Aid declaration on file that covers the date the donation was made (the Gift Aid declaration asserts that the donor is a UK taxpayer that has paid enough tax to cover the amount that will be claimed on the gift)
- UK taxpayers must opt-in to Gift Aid in order for your organisation to claim Gift Aid on the donation
Gift Aid eligibility for donors who live overseas
HMRC allows Gift Aid to be claimed on donations made by donors who live overseas, but who continue to pay taxes in the UK. In order for an organisation to claim Gift Aid on these gifts, the donor’s Billing Address must reflect the country they reside in.
HMRC handles overseas claims differently to claims from UK residents. All UK-resident claims must pass a Postcode validation. Most Gift Aid eligible donations are made by UK residents therefore iMIS will assume that a blank country on an address means UK. Therefore, if the overseas address is not a UK address, but the Country field is left blank, iMIS will still process it as a UK address. If an overseas donation is included in the claim sent to HMRC as a UK address, the Postcode validation will fail.
If the donor does not live in the United Kingdom, the Country field must be populated with the donor’s correct country.
Note: If the Country field is left blank, the Gift Aid claim process assumes the Country is UK. If you have an overseas donor you need to make sure the Country field is populated so that HMRC can validate the postcode correctly.
Ineligible
The following types of donations are ineligible for Gift Aid:
- Pledges, recurring gifts, and donations billed to someone other than the donor are not eligible for Gift Aid.
- Gifts from donors who have not opted in to Gift Aid with a Gift Aid declaration are not eligible to be claimed for Gift Aid.
- Gifts from donors who have a declaration, but elect not to participate in Gift Aid for a specific donation by deselecting the Yes, add Gift Aid checkbox, are not eligible to be claimed for Gift Aid.