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Frequently Asked Questions about Gift Aid

Want to know more about Gift Aid, how to include it with your donation, and if your donations are applicable? Read our list of FAQs below.

If you have further questions or are still unsure, contact us directly at giving@ntu.ac.uk and we’ll be able to help.

Gift Aid

Gift Aid allows UK charities to claim back the basic rate tax already paid on donations by the donor. This means that for every £1 donated, we can claim back 25p from the government on your behalf, boosting the value of the donation by 25%. As a Higher Education Corporation, Nottingham Trent University has ‘exempt charity’ status, which derives from the Charities Act 1993 (subsequently consolidated in the Charities Act 2011). Exempt charities benefit from charitable status meaning that we are able to claim Gift Aid on qualifying donations to our causes.

When a UK taxpayer gives a gift of money to a charity, tax has already been paid on that money. Because charities are exempt from tax, we can claim this money back from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and put it towards funding for our priority causes instead. Rest assured that any Gift Aid claimed on your gift will always go to support the cause you donated to, unless clearly stated otherwise.

To claim Gift Aid on your donation, we require the following:

  • Your full name (first and surnames)
  • Your full address and postcode
  • A ticked Gift Aid declaration box
  • The date of the declaration

It is super easy! When you make a donation through our online donation form, just tick the Gift Aid box to confirm that you are a UK taxpayer. Or, you can email us at giving@ntu.ac.uk and we will send you a form to fill out.

If you are a UK taxpayer and have paid enough tax in the tax year to cover the amount of Gift Aid claimed on all of your donations, then you can provide a Gift Aid declaration. You can find more information from HMRC online.

Not all donations qualify for Gift Aid – for example, the following scenarios are not applicable:

  • Making a donation in return for tickets (raffles, events and auctions) or goods and services (including ‘experience’ days). This is because they are not 'freewill' gifts – you are getting something in return for your donation.
  • Making a donation on behalf of someone else or a group of people. For example, if a friend gives you £10 which you donate to your Fundraising Page using your own card and details. Even if your friend is a UK taxpayer, the donation is not eligible because HMRC needs to know the details of the person actually contributing the funds.
  • Making a donation on behalf of a company. You can only make Gift Aid declarations on your own taxpayer status when spending your own money. However, a company can claim tax relief on the donation when donating directly to NTU.
  • Making a donation to a family member who's taking part in an event and where NTU is contributing to the cost. For example, if you're donating to a close family member who is doing the Robin Hood Half Marathon and NTU has paid for the cost of their place.

The Gift Aid scheme is unique to the UK. If you are not a UK taxpayer, you can still make a donation, but your donation will not be eligible for Gift Aid.  

A person living overseas can still claim Gift Aid provided that they are a UK taxpayer and can satisfy the Gift Aid declaration in the donation process.

Please contact our fundraising team at giving@ntu.ac.uk if you wish to cancel your Gift Aid declaration – for example if you no longer pay sufficient tax on your income and/or capital gains – or if you need to update your name/home address details.

It is your responsibility to tell us if you are no longer a UK tax payer and are therefore no longer eligible for Gift Aid. We will cancel your declaration from the date you inform us.

Gift Aid repair letters

We have recently discovered that some of the Gift Aid declarations we hold are invalid. In most cases, this is because the explanatory wording used has been revised by HMRC and we therefore need to advise current and previous donors of the most recent regulations.  In other cases, historic declarations may be missing from our files.

By sending out repair letters we give donors an opportunity to review their declaration and advise us of any changes to their details. Donors only need to contact us if their details have changed or are incorrect.

If we don’t hear from a donor within 30 days of the date of the letter, HMRC advises that we can consider the declaration to be repaired and can continue to claim Gift Aid under that declaration.

We can only claim Gift Aid on donations if we hold a valid Gift Aid declaration made by the donor. If we discover that a declaration is invalid, we are required to write to donors to ‘repair’ their declaration so we can claim Gift Aid.

The repair letter will set out any reason why the declaration is invalid, providing the donor with all the information they need to make their declaration valid.

If a declaration cannot be repaired, NTU will have to repay the Gift Aid we have claimed under the invalid declaration.

We are auditing our files and contacting everyone who has an invalid or missing Gift Aid declaration attached to a historic or current gift. In most cases, this is likely to be because Gift Aid wording has changed over time and therefore the historic wording you have is now incorrect, or alternatively that we can’t locate a declaration for you in our files. Your letter will outline the exact reason.

No. Occasionally we do receive a Gift Aid declaration that has a mistake on it, and we always contact the donor at the time.
The wording provided by HMRC is subject to change across the years and it is possible that not all our forms were correctly updated.

Alternatively, HMRC also requires that all charities keep a copy of Gift Aid declarations to prove eligibility for Gift Aid, and we may be unable to locate your original declaration in our files.

If the details provided in your letter are correct, you do not need to do anything.

If anything is incorrect or needs updating, then please get in touch with us within 30 days of the date on the letter.

You can contact us by email at giving@ntu.ac.uk or by post at: Development and Alumni Relations, Nottingham Trent University, 50 Shakespeare Street, Nottingham, NG1 4FQ.

No. This only affects the Gift Aid we claim on your donations.

We ask you to let us know within 30 days of the date of the letter if there are any changes we need to make to the way we claim or have claimed Gift Aid on your donations. If we don’t hear from you, we will proceed on the assumption that your donations are/were eligible for Gift Aid.

Under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules, we are permitted to contact you about your Gift Aid declaration because we have a legitimate interest in ensuring we are following HMRC regulation with regard to claiming Gift Aid.

Under HMRC regulation we have a liability period of the current tax year plus the previous four tax years. This means that if you made any donations from 5/4/2021 on which we claimed Gift Aid we need to ensure that we had a valid declaration covering those donations, otherwise we be liable to repay the Gift Aid that we claimed.

If you can’t find the answer you need in these FAQs please contact us at giving@ntu.ac.uk or write to us: Development and Alumni Relations, Nottingham Trent University, 50 Shakespeare Street, Nottingham, NG1 4FQ.
We will be happy to talk more.

Still got questions?

Get in touch with our Fundraising team at giving@ntu.ac.uk and we’ll be happy to answer them.