Many sheds are now becoming Charities and taking advantage of the CIO status. Southbourne Men’s Shed is one of them. (And after a month I am still waiting for our bankers, Co-op Bank, to confirm that all our paperwork, change of signatures and CIO status are in order!)
The next stage is the consideration of benefiting from the Charity Status and claiming Tax Refunds on Gift Aid donations. But this is a whole new ball game and impacts on the willingness and competence of treasurers (or some other shed member) to pursue this aspect. It’s one thing to manage an account with cash and cheques etc. But Gift Aid requires a whole new set of demands in setting up and maintaining records, and claim tax refunds on-line all of which have to be kept for at least 6 years.
And even HMRC do not make life very easy or uncomplicated in setting up the relationship with them. Getting your charity ‘recognised’ as HMRC call it, having first of all set up your organisation’s ‘Government Gateway’, and then applying for and getting an ‘activation’ code for the particular Government service you require.
Then there is the question how to keep and maintain the Gift Aid donation records. Using a Commercial package may be ‘over-the-top’ for groups such as men’s sheds, but HMRC do suggest one route by giving you the opportunity to download (for free) LibreOffice (through one of the HMRC pages when you eventually find the right page!) . And all this has to be done ‘on-line’ .
And then there is the question of possibly setting up a ‘Donations’ link on the shed’s website, and then perhaps get all shed members' donations routed through this method. Using an approved ‘commercial’ organisation will be able to handle all the Tax reclaims for you. With most commercial outfits this is not a ‘free’ service. I am about to explore ‘My Donate’ which is BT’s (allegedly) free service. (Another charity I am involved with uses Virgin Giving on line and they have no cap on the commission they charge on the donation amount so you can probably guess how much was charged on an unexpected donation of £3000 through this route !)
I would be pleased to learn how other sheds have got on with this aspect of a Sheds daily financial life. Perhaps someone is able to put all what I have said into a set of logical and easily understandable and annotated, progression steps together with correct links to the appropriate HMRC web pages!
Blessings
Andrew Bloxham
[hidden email]Treasurer, Southbourne, Men’s Shed
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