Gift Aid stays at 28% in 2008 Budget

So... some good news for charities in the 2008 Budget! Yesterday, the Chancellor announced that charities can continue to reclaim Gift Aid at its current rate of 22% for the next three years, despite the standard rate of income tax dropping to 20%.

What does this mean?

Well, an extra £300 million for charities, according to the Financial Times. Who then go on to say that...

Claiming gift aid can be highly complex, since it is hard for charities to tell which donors are eligible and which are not.

Of course, with respect to Justgiving, we reclaim Gift Aid on every eligible donation made through the site. To do that we ask all donors a couple of questions to confirm the eligibility of their donation for Gift Aid - and you can see what they are in an earlier post.

This means it's not "highly complex" at all if people make a donation through our site, making us an extremely efficient way to collect donations online - and the reason why most charities use the site.

Justgiving's Chief Financial Officer, Neil Bannister, had this to say about the Budget:

It's great news to see that the Chancellor has recognised the importance of charitable giving in the current budget by keeping Gift Aid at the current rate, due to the 2% transitional relief.

Gift Aid is a hugely important relief for all charities - last year, Justgiving processed £18.5 million of Gift Aid on donations of £85 million; the previously expected fall in Gift Aid to 20% would have meant that £2 million less Gift Aid would have been raised for charities through the site.

Justgiving will continue to endeavour to help all member charities take advantage of Gift Aid through our automatic reclaim process and benefit from this Budget announcement.

To find out more about Gift Aid and Justgiving, see our riveting explanation here.

And for more information on the Treasury's consultation with charities about Gift Aid, and what they announced in the 2008 Budget, see their website here.

Their site includes a handy PDF download that gives you the high level and detailed information about the changes and non-changes to Gift Aid, including a the launch of a new Gift Aid web information service amongst many more exciting things...