parent nodes: GASDS
small cash donations
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/charities/gasds/what-counts.htm
Donations need to be £20 or less and made in cash to qualify for the scheme. This guide tells you more about what sort of donations do and don’t qualify under the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS).
Small donations definition
For the GASDS, a small donation is a cash donation from an individual to a charity or Community Amateur Sports Club (CASC) of £20 or less. The donation must be in bank notes or coins. Donations made by cheque, credit card, text or bank transfer do not count.
If your charity or CASC is aware that a gift was greater than £20 then you must not claim a top-up payment on that gift under the GASDS. If your organisation claims under the GASDS, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) expects you to have a process in place to make sure that your staff and volunteers do not deliberately include gifts of more than £20 as small donations. HMRC recognises that it will not always be obvious to a charity whether a particular donation qualifies.
Example one
An individual could donate £30 in three £10 notes to a collection, but the collector may not see the cash being put into the collection. Your charity or CASC needs to take reasonable measures to apply the £20 limit, but you are not expected to check every donation as it is made. In this case, when the collection is counted, it would be reasonable to assume those three £10 notes qualify as individual donations as the collector did not see them being placed in the collection.
Example two
In example one, if the donations were collected in envelopes and the three £10 notes were placed in one envelope then your charity or CASC should assume that the donation was made by one person. The donation will not therefore count as a small donation.
If your charity or CASC receives donations of £20 or less, you can assume that these donations qualify under the scheme unless you know, or would be reasonably expected to know, that they were part of a larger donation that does not qualify. If the donation is larger than £20, or the donor is giving regularly to your charity, then you should be encouraging them to make a Gift Aid declaration where appropriate.
General rules for deciding if a donation qualifies
Do not treat any bank note of value greater than £20 as a small donation.
Any bank note of £20 or below, and all coins, can be treated as a small donation unless your organisation knows they were made as part of a single donation of over £20. This would be the case, for example, if a donor personally hands over £30 to a collector, or if the donor asks for a regular monthly donation in excess of £20 to be treated as if the payment was made in weekly instalments.
Bank notes and coins can be of any currency up to a sterling equivalent of £20.
Charity or CASC membership fees are not small donations for GASDS purposes.
A cash payment which results in a benefit or gift to the donor does not qualify under the GASDS. The GASDS applies only to small cash gifts with no benefits attached. The only exception to this is a gift with a negligible value, such as a lapel sticker or badge to acknowledge the donation.
Small donations must be collected in the UK to qualify for the GASDS.
Small donations must be banked in the UK, in a branch of a bank or building society physically located in the UK. If they are not banked they are not eligible for the GASDS.
If you receive a valid Gift Aid declaration for a small cash donation then this will not qualify for the GASDS. Similarly, if you know that your charity or CASC holds an enduring declaration for a donor giving a small cash donation, then this donation will not qualify for the GASDS either. These donations should be included in your Gift Aid claim.