The Gift Aid scheme is for gifts of money freely donated by individuals who pay UK tax, the Government wishes to encourage charitable giving.

The charity gratefully receive your donation, which is money you have already paid UK tax on; we then reclaim the tax with your permission, the basic rate tax from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) on its ‘gross’ equivalent – the amount before basic rate tax was deducted.

Basic rate tax is 20 per cent, so this means that if you give £10 using Gift Aid, it’s worth £12.50 to the charity (+25%); £2.50 recovered on your behalf from HMRC OR a higher rate tax payer can turn a £10 donation, using Gift Aid into £13.75 (+37.5%); £3.75 recoverable from HMRC. This process costs you nothing. OAKS handles all the paperwork directly with the Inland Revenue.

A Gift Aid declaration must include:

• Your full name, 1st line of your address & Postcode.
• OAKS specified as the recipient.
• Your agreement to a gift aid donation, with a tick, basic tax rate will be assumed, unless otherwise stated.
• If you complete a Gift Aid declaration we will assume any subsequent money will be covered by this agreement, so it need only to be completed once.