Charity Donations - Is this "legal"?

[scz4]

Morning all,

I raised over £2000 when running the London marathon a few weeks back. As I was wishing to split the total funds between two charities, I setup a JustGiving page which people generously donated to. Unfortunately no Gift Aid option as the money is technically going to myself to be distributed, rather than directly to the charity.

Today I'll make a donation to each charity on their website (one of them is JustGiving), but can I select the Gift Aid option? Any implications since it is, but isn't, my money?

Thanks in advance.

G

Edited by scz4 on Tuesday 13th May 08:37

[akirk]

If the money came to you legally, then you are donating your own money. If you have paid the right amounts of tax you can donate it with gift aid - it is no different to money you have earned…

Think of it as you have banked / spent the just giving donated money and now you are separately donating money from taxed earnings…

[GiantEnemyCrab]

Genuinely, do you think HMRC have time or the inclination to give a fk about this sort of stuff.

Just tick the box and help them out.

[deggles]

Is it legal? No. You can only make a Gift Aid declaration on your own money. It's not your money if you have collected it from other people for the purpose of giving it to charity.

Whether you will get away with it is an entirely different question.

[LennyM1984]

GiantEnemyCrab said:

Genuinely, do you think HMRC have time or the inclination to give a fk about this sort of stuff.

A couple of years ago, they hounded me relentlessly for £16 they believed that I had underpaid (for context, I am very fortunate to pay quite a lot of tax and so £16 was a negligible amount). After almost a year of trying to reason with them, it turned out that they actually owed me £600.

Pettiness is what HMRC excel at...