Church Collection Envelopes, Gift Aid and Charity Envelopes

On 22nd October 2015, HMRC announced that a new Gift Aid declaration is now in force and that all envelopes bearing the old Gift Aid declaration would be invalid after April 6th 2016.

However, after receiving a series of complaints from charities and churches across the UK, they have now decided to relax the deadline.

Churches and charities that still have large amounts of Gift Aid envelopes bearing the old wording will now have time to use up all of their stock before purchasing new envelopes with the revised wording.

In a message to Lockie, Andrew Kayley, a member of the HMRC Technical team for Charities, Savings and International stated as follows:

“Approaches have been made to HMRC by various charities and churches that hold stocks of pre-printed Gift Aid donation envelopes that were ordered and printed just before the new Gift Aid declarations were published on our website, it has been agreed that charities can use up their current stock of pre-printed Gift Aid collection envelopes beyond April 2016.

Our guidance will continue to recommend that charities introduce the new wording by April 2016, because we want to reduce the numbers of non-taxpayers that currently complete Gift Aid declarations.

However, because the Gift Aid legislation has not changed, previous versions of the Gift Aid declarations and Gift Aid envelopes used by donors after 6 April 2016 will still be valid and can be accepted by charities and churches.”

To learn more about the HMRC declaration changes, please click here.

If you have any questions regarding this latest HMRC update, please contact Lockie by calling 01942 402510 or emailing sales@lockiechurch.com.