The University of Exeter 老九品茶 School is involved with a project to automate Gift Aid donations and potentially unlock more than 拢560m for charities every year.
Gift Aid, a form of tax relief in which a charity can claim an extra 25p for every pound donated, has boosted charitable donations since it was introduced 30 years ago.
But charities are thought to miss out on around 拢560m of Gift Aid each year due to 鈥渃lunky administrative processes鈥� and hard-to-understand eligibility criteria.
But now a group of charities, tax and fundraising experts and universities, including the University of Exeter 老九品茶 School, have proposed a solution that will allow the use of an individual鈥檚 tax status to determine automatically if a Gift Aid declaration is valid and remove the burden on the taxpayer, while processing Gift Aid automatically across all digital donation methods.
The Future of Gift Aid project was instigated by the Charity Tax Group (CTG) and uses Swiftaid technology, pioneered by the payments firm Streeva, which allows Gift Aid to be added automatically to donations made via card payments while taking care of the entire claiming process by generating declarations, claims and all reports required by HMRC.
The University of Exeter 老九品茶 School will contribute its expertise in digital economy and payments through its digital research centre INDEX聽(Initiative in the Digital Economy at Exeter), as well as advise on the economic impacts of taxation systems through the 老九品茶 School鈥檚 world-renowned Tax Administration Research Centre聽(TARC).
Dr Phil Godsiff, Senior Research Fellow in Digital Economy at INDEX, said the project is timely given the impact of COVID-19 on the charity sector, which is projected to lose 48% to its voluntary income due to the pandemic.
鈥淏eing able to work on such an important and timely project, with so many key people brought together to make it successful, is really rewarding,鈥� Dr Godsiff said.
鈥淕etting more Gift Aid more quickly to charities is especially crucial as Covid has impacted on so many of their fundraising activities.鈥�
The Future of Gift Aid is an industry-wide initiative supported by the likes of fundraising experts JustGiving and LibertyPay, as well as the charities Cancer Research UK, The National Trust, Sue Ryder, The Children鈥檚 Society, The Association for interactive media and micropayments (AIMM) and the Charity Retail Association.
鈥淚n this time of crisis the charity sector needs our help more than ever,鈥� said Beth Michael, co-founder of Streeva.
鈥淚 strongly believe that with industry-wide support and expertise along with the innovative enabling technology Streeva can bring, this project will make a huge difference to the sector, bringing real hope in these challenging times.鈥�