Gift Aid

Your donation

If you donate to us, you will be asked to declare whether you would like us to claim Gift Aid. This will be either filling in the details on the printed form (print form from website or receive form with newsletter when posted), filling the online Gift Aid form if you make a donation via PayPal.

What is Gift Aid?

Gift Aid allows us to claim an extra 28% on top of your donation from the Inland Revenue. This means that for every £1 you donate, Comic Relief can claim an extra 28p direct from the Government.

Does your donation qualify for Gift Aid?

By filing in the Gift Aid form, you are declaring that you are a UK taxpayer (for the year beginning 6th April) and you have paid (or are going to pay) the Government more tax throughout that year than we are claiming back. If you have donated £10, for example, and have indicated that you would like us to claim the tax back, we can claim £2.80 from the Inland Revenue. You must, therefore, be sure that you have paid (or will pay) more than £2.80 in income or Capital Gains tax to the Government for that tax year. This is because the Government cannot give the money you've already paid back to us if you haven't paid any! For more information on how Gift Aid works, contact your local tax office or visit the Inland Revenue website.

Frequently Asked Questions

You must:

• Pay at least as much tax as we will reclaim on your donation in the tax year in which you made it. The tax year runs from April 6th in one year to 5th April in the next.
• Have made a declaration to us (via the various options above) that you want your donation to be Gift Aided and provided us with your name and full address.

When you give money to us under the Gift Aid scheme, we will reclaim back the basic rate tax on that money (28%). You must therefore pay an amount of tax in this tax year (6th April - 5th April) at least equal to the tax we will reclaim. That tax can be income tax or capital gains tax at any rate. If, for example, you have donated £10, we can claim an extra £2.80 from the Inland Revenue. You would therefore have needed to pay more than £2.80 in tax over the year. If you have donated £20, you'd need to have paid more than £5.60 in tax, £100, more than £28 etc. Even if you only pay tax at the 10% starting rate, that tax can cover the tax we reclaim on the donation.

You can calculate the amount of tax we would roughly claim back by using the following equation:
0.28 x £Your donation
(E.G.1) 0.28 x £10.00 = £2.80
( E.G.2) 0.28 x £20.00 = £5.60

The charity reclaims the tax on your donation only at the basic rate, even if you are a higher rate taxpayer. If you are a higher rate taxpayer, you can claim the difference between the higher rate of tax of 40% and the basic rate of tax of 22% on your Self Assessment return.

Yes. Tax credits on dividend income can be used to cover tax reclaimed by the charity.

If tax is deducted from bank or building society interest you receive, you can use that to cover the tax on the donation, provided you have not reclaimed it. If you have reclaimed that tax, then you must not use it to cover the tax on your gift.

The declaration is our authority to reclaim tax from the Inland Revenue on your donation. By giving the declaration you are confirming that you understand this.

If, for any reason, you decide that your donation should not be Gift Aided, you have 30 days from the date of the written record to tell us to withdraw it.

If you have simply collected money from other people and they have not made a declaration to the charity that they are taxpayers, the payment is not Gift Aid-able. However, if you have been sponsored for an event, and each sponsor has signed a Gift Aid declaration (the tick box on the sponsor form) and given us their name and full address, then we can reclaim the tax on the amounts covered by their declarations.