Lord O’Neill of Gatley (Con) responded on 12 July 2016 to a written question to HM Treasury by Lord Shinkwin (Con), on the reclamation or recovering of Gift Aid by HMRC.

Lord Shinkwin:

“On how many occasions (1) in the last tax year for which figures are available, and (2) for each of the tax years since the introduction of Gift Aid, HMRC reclaimed or recovered Gift Aid from an individual because they had mistakenly made a Gift Aid declaration to a charity or had not paid sufficient tax to cover the Gift Aid.”

Lord O’Neill of Gatley:

“Around £1.3bn of Gift Aid was paid to charities in 2015/16, the highest year of Gift Aid payments since the scheme began. During 2015/16, HMRC contacted 2,580 individuals where a shortfall was identified in the tax needed to cover the donation. Individual donors are responsible for ensuring they have paid sufficient tax to cover any Gift Aid reclaimed in their donation. No statistics are available for earlier years.”