Gift Aid is a UK tax incentive that enables tax-effective giving by individuals to charity organizations operating in England and Wales, in our case the Polish Catholic Mission, which is made up of all its local communities, including our parish.
It is a kind of alternative form of donation made on the “collection plate”.
The main difference is that if you donate using Gift Aid to the ‘collection plate’, the Parish will receive an additional 25p refund on each £1 donated from the tax already paid by the donor. It is a very similar form of donation to the 1% tax transfer to various foundations operating in Poland.
For example:
By making a donation of £1 to the collection plate in the form of Gift Aid, within 52 weeks of the year, a total of £52 will be made.
On top of this £52, the Tax Office will pay an additional 25% or £13 to the Parish at the end of the calendar year. So, we can say that in total we donate not £52 but £65 to the Parish.
For Gift Aid of £2 a week, the Parish will receive a total of £ 130 a year in total. The greater our donation, the more we can offer direct help to our Parish. The amount of Gift Aid donations, like all other donations, is of course voluntary.
Last year, Gift Aid donors donated a total of £ 1,968 to the Parish. By taking into account the additional amount donated to the Parish by the Tax Office of £492, this makes an overall total of £2,460.
All these donations are designated for the upkeep of the Parish
For a Parish offering to be considered as Gift Aid, three conditions must be met:
- The donor must complete and sign the GIFT AID DECLARATION introduced by the Tax Office on April 6, 2000. This is a declaration that has specially approved text.
- The donor pays UK Income Tax.
- The tax refund requested by the Parish will not exceed the amount of tax paid by the donor in the year.
Who can sign a Gift Aid Declaration?
Anyone who receives any income (from work, pensions or bank interest on savings) on which they pay UK Income Tax can sign this declaration. The Gift Aid can be signed by both UK residents and people temporarily residing in the UK who are paying UK income tax.
Each registered donor receives a set of envelopes in which he can pass his Gift Aid offering to the “collection plate”. The offering can also be submitted by standing order from the bank to the Parish account:
Sort code: 30-94-57 Account No. 00624418 with the note “Gift Aid”. Even the smallest amount donated will be increased by an additional 25%.
Gift Aid registration forms are available in the vestry, on the choir table, as well as on the website of the Polish Catholic Mission in England and Wales, and downloadable from our Parish website. Gift Aid envelopes are dated by Sunday order. If someone is not attending one of the Sunday Masses, they do not have to bring unused envelopes with the offering at a later time.
Together with our Parish Council, I openly encourage our parishioners to undertake this method of donation