Does our Stewardship Partner Account affect our Gift Aid Small Donation Scheme (GASDS) allowance?
The rules on claims through the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme are complex, so it depends!
To help answer this, it’s important to remember that the payments you receive from your Partner Account are charitable grants from Stewardship, generally funded by gifts that we have received from your supporters. It's also important to remember that Stewardship makes Gift Aid claims on those gifts ourselves, where eligible.
In order to claim GASDS, your church or charity must have claimed Gift Aid itself in the same tax year as when you want to claim GASDS. Your GASDS claim must not exceed 10 times the amount of your own Gift Aid claim and, as explained above, the grants you receive from your Stewardship Partner Account should not be included in your Gift Aid claim calculations.
As a worked example, let's say in a tax year that you receive the following:
- £9,000 from Stewardship
- £2,500 from other giving that is eligible for Gift Aid
- £625 in Gift Aid (having claimed on the £2,500)
In this example, you can only claim up to £6,250 of small donations under GASDS for that year (10 times £625).
For more help and another worked example you can download our free resource, Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme: a practical guide.
You may also wish to read another Help & Support article: Can we claim Gift Aid on the payments we receive from Stewardship?