The Government published a formal consultation on GASDS which includes a summary of responses to the Call for Evidence that took place earlier this year.

This consultation has now closed, and CTG has responded. An update can be found here and a policy paper can be viewed here.

Summary of key proposals

• A proposal to relax the Gift Aid history requirement so that a charity would only need one year of successful Gift Aid claims (including in the previous tax year)
• A willingness to explore the extension of GASDS to contactless payments (but not to cheques/direct debits etc)
• A proposal to amend the community buildings rules to allow charities or a ‘group’ of charities to claim either under the main GASDS allowance or under the community buildings allowance, but not both. Charities receiving donations in multiple community buildings could make multiple claims under community buildings rules but not in addition to the main allowance
• Consideration to relaxing the definition of a community building to allow collections received outside of the building (in the community) to be included
• The Government is not minded to relax the 10 person element in the community buildings rules, because of concerns about fraud
• The £8,000 cap seems likely to remain for the time being and eligible donations will continue to be capped at £20.

Statistics show that, so far, GASDS take-up has mainly related to Community Buildings (reflecting the high usage by churches) and that £23,475,000 was paid out in the tax year 2013-14.