Claiming Gift Aid online (v4: December 2019)

This guide helps you to claim Gift Aid using the Charities Online service through the Government

Gateway. It does not replace the official guidance which can be accessed by clicking on the icons.

There are three stages to making a claim….

1. Registering with the Government Gateway for the Charities Online service.

2. Preparing spreadsheets in the format required by HMRC, which may involve downloading LibreOffice

3. Making a claim online, which can include Gift Aid and claims on the Small Donations Scheme.

Step One: Registering with the Government Gateway to Claim Online

1. To register you need to go to https://www.gov.uk/claim-gift-aid-online.

2. Click ‘add Charities Online to your HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) online account’.

3. To sign in using Government Gateway, you need your 12-digit user ID. If you have a login, enter

your details, click continue and jump to 4.

a. If you do not already have a Government Gateway ID, click ‘Create sign in details’.

b. Enter your email address and then enter the temporary code which has been emailed to

you.

c. Provide your full name and create a password and recovery code. Your password must:

· be between eight and twelve characters (letters and numbers)

· contain at least one number (0-9) and at least one letter (a-z)

d. Your 12-digit Government Gateway User ID will be generated. You must make a note of

this but it will also be emailed to you. If you write it down, you are also recommended to

print the page, so you can verify that it is correct. You will need to keep this safe as it will

be needed every time you log in to use HMRC online services, along with your password.

Then click the ‘Next’ button.

4. ‘Choose the type of account you need’ – select ‘Organisation’ and press continue.

5. You will now be directed to your ‘Business tax summary’ page where you can add a business tax

account, which includes charity/gift aid accounts.

6. Underneath ‘You have not added a tax to this account’, click ‘add a tax, duty or scheme’ to your

account.

7. In ‘What do you want to add?’ select ‘Other taxes or schemes’.

8. In ’Select a category’, select ‘Charities – for Gift Aid repayment claims’.

9. You will now be asked for your charity details. You will need your: HMRC Charities

Reference Number (often beginning with an X), the postcode of the address registered

with HMRC (usually your authorised official), and either the last four digits of your

organisation's bank account number that HMRC use to pay Gift Aid into, or if you

registered with HMRC after 6

April 2013, your customer account number.

9. Enter Charity Details.

You will need to enter:

• Your HMRC Charities Reference Number (often beginning with an X),

• And the postcode of the address registered with HMRC (usually your authorised official),

and either

• the last four digits of the bank account number that HMRC use to pay your Gift Aid claims

into, or

• if you registered with HMRC after 6th April 2013, your customer account number.

Then click the ‘Request Access’ button.

You now need to wait for an Activation code to arrive in the post from the Government Gateway. This will

have a tear off cover over a part of the letter, revealing a twelve digit activation code.

Registering to Claim Online: Completing the Process

Once the letter from the Government Gateway has arrived, you will need to complete the registration

process following the instructions given.

‘Charities’ listed as one of the ‘services you can use’. You’ll then need to:

• Select ‘activate service’.

• Enter your Charities Online activation code.

• Select ‘activate’.

Step Two: Getting the ability to create spreadsheets in the right format.

HMRC require the schedule spreadsheets to be submitted in Open Document format (ODF). This means

that you will need to have either of the software programs below installed on your computer:

• Microsoft Excel - Microsoft Office 2010 for Microsoft Windows

• LibreOffice 3.5 for Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS and Linux

When you download the spreadsheets (see below) you will need to make sure you choose the right

version from the HMRC web page, as there are different versions for Excel and LibreOffice.

Gift Aid Spreadsheets:

At www.gov.uk/guidance/schedule-spreadsheet-to-claim-back-tax-on-gift-aid-donations you will find a

link through to a site where you can download LibreOffice for free, and also (right at the bottom) links to

the Gift Aid schedule spreadsheet that you will need to attach. Remember, you’ll need to select either

the LibreOffice version or the Excel version.

At the top of the spreadsheet, you will need to enter the

earliest donation date you are claiming for, and any over-

claimed amounts from previous claims.

Below that you need to enter information about donors.

You need to enter their title, Initial or First Name and Last name, and then the House name or number

and the Postcode; and then for each donor the date of the donation, or the latest in the series and the

total amount given. The spreadsheet will calculate the amount of donations at the top of the schedule.

You can enter aggregated donations of £20 or less, up to a total of £1,000 per row. This can be helpful for

one-off Gift Aid envelopes. To claim this, leave the donor details blank, and enter a simple description in

the Aggregated Donations box. To find out more, see GA8 Aggregated Claims at:

www.parishresources.org.uk/giftaid/

Community Buildings Spreadsheets:

If you have more than one church building in your parish, you will need to use the Community Buildings

schedule for the Small Donations Scheme. This can be accessed at

www.gov.uk/guidance/schedule-spreadsheet-for-community-building-gasds-claims

In the Community Buildings table (shown above) you will need to enter the address of each of your

churches (community buildings) along with their postcode. If you do not have a postcode for the church,

you should take that of the nearest building with a postcode.

If you have only one church building in your parish, you won’t need to use a spreadsheet, and can

simply enter the amount claimed on the online

form.

Step Three: Making the Claim

Once you have your spreadsheets ready, making

the claim is reasonably easy.

You need to log back into the Government

Gateway, and then access the services you can

use. To access the charities Gift Aid claiming

system you need to select “View Account” as

shown in red on the screen shot on the right.

Then click on the “Make a charity repayment

claim” link.

The next screen (shown below) asks you what you want to claim. You are likely to want to claim on Gift

Aid, so answer ‘Yes’, although you can claim GASDS at a separate time from Gift Aid if you wish. You are

likely to answer ‘No’ to the

second question. How you claim

on the Small Donations Scheme

will depend on whether you have

a single church building in your

parish (answer yes to the first

option – marked with the red

arrow A) or whether you have

more than one building (answer

yes to the second option instead –

marked with the blue arrow B).

Full guidance on the scheme can

be found at:

www.parishresources.org.uk/gifta

id/smalldonations/ which includes

details of how to claim under each option.

You are next asked for details about the organisation.

Even though all PCCs whether registered or not are

regulated by the Charity Commission, if you are not

registered with the Charity Commission, you will need to

answer “none” to the question ‘Name of Charity

Regulator’ (you can then leave the Charity Registration

number blank).

You should answer “no” to the question about whether

you are a Corporate Trustee. This has nothing to do with

whether you are a PCC member!

You then need to input data about your authorised

official – the person notified to HRMC who is authorised

to claim on your behalf.

The next stage of the process is to attach the spreadsheets you have prepared earlier, first for Gift Aid,

and then if you are claiming on more than one church building in your parish, the community buildings

spreadsheet.

If everything is fine, then you will see the file

incorporated into the screen, as shown in the

example on the left.

When you accept this by clicking “confirm

details” you see the message below confirming

that the file has been successfully attached.

If there are errors in the file, these will be pointed out, and the file will need correcting and re-attaching.

The final stage of the process is to submit your claim, and to receive confirmation that the claim has been

successfully submitted with a submission receipt reference number.

To submit the claim, you first need to complete the ‘Declaration’ screen, ticking the check box to

acknowledge that you understand that false statements can lead to prosecution.

You then need to re-enter the user ID and password that you entered at the start of the process as a

security check. On this screen, clicking the “submit” button will submit your claim for payment.

This takes you to a final screen which is an Acknowledgement that the claim has been submitted, and

gives you a submission receipt reference number. You should either print the screen or make a note of

this number for your records.

Between 8am and 5:00pm, Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays), you can the HMRC Charities

helpline if you are having difficulty with submitting your claim on 0845 302 0203.