What Is Gift Aid and Why Every UK Church Should Automate It

Gift Aid is one of the most valuable tax reliefs available to UK charities — and yet a significant number of churches either don't claim it, or claim less than they're entitled to. Here's what it is, why it matters, and how to stop leaving money on the table.

What is Gift Aid?

Gift Aid is a UK government scheme that allows registered charities — including churches — to reclaim the basic rate of income tax (currently 20%) on eligible donations made by UK taxpayers. Because the basic rate is 20%, this means for every £1 donated, your church can reclaim an extra 25p from HMRC.

Who qualifies?

The donor must be a UK taxpayer who has paid (or will pay) at least as much income or capital gains tax in the tax year as the amount reclaimed on their donations. They must sign a Gift Aid declaration confirming this — and that declaration must be kept on record by your church.

Why most churches under-claim

• Declarations collected on paper and then lost or never digitised
• Declarations that are unsigned, undated, or missing address details
• No process to capture declarations from new givers
• One-off donations (cash, bank transfer) with no declaration at all
• Treasurer doing manual HMRC R68i submissions with incomplete data

The case for automation

When giving and Gift Aid declarations happen inside the same app, the declaration is collected at the moment of donation — before the member even sees the payment screen. It's stored digitally, timestamped, and linked to the member's giving record. No paper. No chasing.

The treasurer then exports a clean giving report with all declaration statuses, ready to submit to HMRC. The difference between doing this well and doing it badly is often thousands of pounds per year.

What Aurnet handles automatically

• Gift Aid declaration prompt shown to every new giver on first donation
• Declarations stored securely against each member record
• Declaration status visible in the admin dashboard (confirmed / pending / opted out)
• Giving export filtered by Gift Aid-eligible donations, ready for HMRC submission
• Automatic re-prompt when a declaration is older than four years

If your church is processing more than £5,000 in annual giving, the time to automate Gift Aid is now — not next year.