Thanks for clarifying. I agree that Gift Aid eligibility is the key question; HMRC does not expect me to have insight into the administration of every charity I donate to, and itās not like they care if charities donāt take the āfreeā money they are entitled to! In other words, whether CEA claims does not matter but whether it could claim does.
However, in order for the charity to be entitled a Gift Aid declaration must be completed:
āWithout this declaration, a donation from an individual will not qualify as a Gift Aid donation.ā
I do not recall filling one in when I last paid for EAGāwhich was multiple years ago to be clearāand without that declaration it is not in fact a Gift Aid donation, in my non-professional opinion of course but itās based on that link. So I did not feel comfortable claiming. Othersā mileage may vary.
Iām glad to hear you are reconsidering the website language.
Weāve mentioned elsewhere that we might revisit the decision not to claim Gift Aid after the event, and so weāre planning to send around Gift Aid Declaration forms to donors soon. We think this would be helpful so we can preserve the option of claiming Gift Aid on these donations in the future.
We think the HMRC guidance to individuals is not very clear, and thanks for your prompt to check this. We have looked into it, and consulted our external advisors and we do not think that it is a requirement of personal tax relief that the individual donor signs a Gift Aid Declaration form. However, as HMRCās own guidance isnāt consistently clear on this, and as weād like to keep the option of claiming the Gift Aid afterwards, weād like to send around GAD forms and will be in touch with donors to do this.
This thread has prompted us to pay closer attention here, so thank you (everyone in this thread) for flagging it!
Thanks for taking time to think about this and act on it! I have not interacted with EA community much, but things like this show why it is great place to be! :)
Iām looking into this. Again, it seems our language here hasnāt been clear enough and I want to make sure Iām as clear as possible when I respond.
I also donāt feel comfortable claiming this as a Gift Aid eligible ādonationā
I canāt remember the wording on the registration page, but I think it was phrased around purchasing a ticket, rather than making a donation
And as you said, there wasnāt any mention of Gift Aid declarations (regardless of whether CEA was going to do anything with that)
Even the confirmation email I got said āDate of purchaseā (rather than āDate of donationā or similar)
While it is true that you could have gotten a free ticket meaning that there was no extra benefit in paying (pointed out by domdomegg here)
Iām not sure how it works given that there was an application process and your application could be rejected
More importantly, HMRC seem to be wise to the idea of treating all ticket purchases as donations, in 3.43.6 here it states:
A charity can charge what it likes for a ticket to attend its event. However, it should not put the charityās funds at risk and, therefore, should set the ticket price at a level to at least recover its costs.
And Iām pretty sure the wording on the registration page was something like āĀ£400 lets us recoup the cost from running the eventā or similar.
So I donāt think HMRC would see these payments as āmonies received as fundraising during an event that the charity put onā rather than āticket price for an eventā (which is not an eligible donation)
Weāre happy to provide as much info as we can here but I just want to make clear that, ultimately, itās your call about whether you claim tax relief on this donation.
We do think we havenāt been sufficiently clear about how donations to EA Global work and weāll be revisiting this language in due course to make things clearer. Addressing a few other points:
Our payment platform is set up to receive payments, and to generate receipts. A purchase receipt does not change the fact that this was a donation to a charity.
Re: whether tickets recoup costs: EA Global conferences cost >Ā£1k per person per event (though thatās coming down) so the suggested donation amount wouldnāt cover the costs of one attendee. Our goal isnāt to maximise donations and break even, so while weāre very grateful for all donations, we want to ensure the event is accessible to a wide range of people.
Re: HMRC rules: As above, our goal isnāt to cover our costs through ticket salesāand we view giving free tickets as part of our wider charitable purposesāso this part of the HMRC guidance doesnāt apply to us.
RE: applications: Filtering all applications and then only inviting selected people to register for a free event is allowed within HMRC rulesāprovided the event is open to a sufficiently wide section of the public, it is fine to require attendees to meet some standards (e.g. demonstrating a genuine interest in the topics at the conference, before they are accepted and then invited to donate). CEA only asks people to make a donation once they have been accepted to attend the event.
Thanks for clarifying. I agree that Gift Aid eligibility is the key question; HMRC does not expect me to have insight into the administration of every charity I donate to, and itās not like they care if charities donāt take the āfreeā money they are entitled to! In other words, whether CEA claims does not matter but whether it could claim does.
However, in order for the charity to be entitled a Gift Aid declaration must be completed:
https://āāwww.gov.uk/āāgovernment/āāpublications/āācharities-detailed-guidance-notes/āāchapter-3-gift-aid#chapter-36-gift-aid-declarations
āWithout this declaration, a donation from an individual will not qualify as a Gift Aid donation.ā
I do not recall filling one in when I last paid for EAGāwhich was multiple years ago to be clearāand without that declaration it is not in fact a Gift Aid donation, in my non-professional opinion of course but itās based on that link. So I did not feel comfortable claiming. Othersā mileage may vary.
Iām glad to hear you are reconsidering the website language.
Thanks for your comment.
Weāve mentioned elsewhere that we might revisit the decision not to claim Gift Aid after the event, and so weāre planning to send around Gift Aid Declaration forms to donors soon. We think this would be helpful so we can preserve the option of claiming Gift Aid on these donations in the future.
We think the HMRC guidance to individuals is not very clear, and thanks for your prompt to check this. We have looked into it, and consulted our external advisors and we do not think that it is a requirement of personal tax relief that the individual donor signs a Gift Aid Declaration form. However, as HMRCās own guidance isnāt consistently clear on this, and as weād like to keep the option of claiming the Gift Aid afterwards, weād like to send around GAD forms and will be in touch with donors to do this.
This thread has prompted us to pay closer attention here, so thank you (everyone in this thread) for flagging it!
Thanks for taking time to think about this and act on it! I have not interacted with EA community much, but things like this show why it is great place to be! :)
Thanks AGB (and Rasool below),
Iām looking into this. Again, it seems our language here hasnāt been clear enough and I want to make sure Iām as clear as possible when I respond.
I also donāt feel comfortable claiming this as a Gift Aid eligible ādonationā
I canāt remember the wording on the registration page, but I think it was phrased around purchasing a ticket, rather than making a donation
And as you said, there wasnāt any mention of Gift Aid declarations (regardless of whether CEA was going to do anything with that)
Even the confirmation email I got said āDate of purchaseā (rather than āDate of donationā or similar)
While it is true that you could have gotten a free ticket meaning that there was no extra benefit in paying (pointed out by domdomegg here)
Iām not sure how it works given that there was an application process and your application could be rejected
More importantly, HMRC seem to be wise to the idea of treating all ticket purchases as donations, in 3.43.6 here it states:
And Iām pretty sure the wording on the registration page was something like āĀ£400 lets us recoup the cost from running the eventā or similar.
So I donāt think HMRC would see these payments as āmonies received as fundraising during an event that the charity put onā rather than āticket price for an eventā (which is not an eligible donation)
Thanks for your comment, Rasool.
Weāre happy to provide as much info as we can here but I just want to make clear that, ultimately, itās your call about whether you claim tax relief on this donation.
We do think we havenāt been sufficiently clear about how donations to EA Global work and weāll be revisiting this language in due course to make things clearer. Addressing a few other points:
Our payment platform is set up to receive payments, and to generate receipts. A purchase receipt does not change the fact that this was a donation to a charity.
Re: whether tickets recoup costs: EA Global conferences cost >Ā£1k per person per event (though thatās coming down) so the suggested donation amount wouldnāt cover the costs of one attendee. Our goal isnāt to maximise donations and break even, so while weāre very grateful for all donations, we want to ensure the event is accessible to a wide range of people.
Re: HMRC rules: As above, our goal isnāt to cover our costs through ticket salesāand we view giving free tickets as part of our wider charitable purposesāso this part of the HMRC guidance doesnāt apply to us.
RE: applications: Filtering all applications and then only inviting selected people to register for a free event is allowed within HMRC rulesāprovided the event is open to a sufficiently wide section of the public, it is fine to require attendees to meet some standards (e.g. demonstrating a genuine interest in the topics at the conference, before they are accepted and then invited to donate). CEA only asks people to make a donation once they have been accepted to attend the event.
Again, thanks so much for your comments here.