The Small Charitable Donations Bill
- Download the report on responses to the Public Reading Stage (PDF, 401kb)
- Memorandum submitted by HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs
The Small Charitable Donations Bill will introduce the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) – a new scheme that will enable charities and community amateur sports clubs (CASCs) to claim Gift Aid style payments on the small donations they receive where it is difficult to get a Gift Aid declaration.
Charities and CASCs will be able to claim a top up payment on small donations of up to £20, up to a total of £5,000 of small donations per year, so qualifying charities and CASCs will be able to claim up to £1,250 in payments each year. It is estimated that this scheme, announced at Budget 2011, will lead to an extra £100 million a year in Government funding for charities by 2015-16. The scheme will commence in April 2013.
Ronald G Wicks, Church Treasurer (Retired): I am currently a member of the Hereford Diocesean Board of Finance and of the Diocesan Synod of the Church of England, situated in Hereford. I have until recently been responsible for the collection of charitable donations made to my local Parish Church.
Based on my 16 years of experience as Treasurer of Cusop Parochial Church Council , I would like to draw the attention of the Standing Committee for the Bill to where I think is a small clarification is required to the SCHEDULE ( Section 3 ) . which I have set out below:
SCHEDULE - Meaning of " Small Donations"- Small cash payment- 1. ( 3 ) In this paragraph -" Cash" means coins and notes in any currency.
While I have rarely ever seen a cheque in a collection at a normal Sunday Church service, they frequently are received after a funeral from those connected with the deceased who have, for some reason, been unable to attend the funeral. The amount is usually £10 or £20. I do not think cheques should be excluded. I think this section needs clarification. To leave it as it is could perhaps cause confusion if those involved assumed,as I expect most would, that a cheque was really 'Cash' and HMRC said it was not.
132 days ago Report this comment