Gift Aid is a government scheme to encourage individuals to give to charities. The Scout Association is a registered charity and therefore is eligible to benefit from Gift Aid. By joining the scheme, the 5th Gosport Sea Scout Group can claim money back from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in respect of the subs that you pay to the 5th in respect of your child/children.

For further information on Gift Aid please click here.

To join the 5th's Gift Aid Scheme the attached Gift Aid Declaration Form needs to be completed by the tax paying parent who pays subs. This form is an official tax form but signing it will not enable us to gain any information from HMRC regarding you, your employment or tax situation. All the information we have about you is what you provide on the form and as you will see the details requested are very basic. In addition to requiring your details, we also ask that you provide us with your child's/children's name(s) and date of birth(s) as this enables us to match the relevant section's subs records with the correct child and the appropriate Gift Aid Declaration.

If you do not pay tax you will not be eligible to join this scheme. Therefore please complete your child's name, your name and address on the form but instead of signing the form please write "Non tax payer" in the signature box.

Please join this scheme, five minutes of your time spent completing the Gift Aid Form will make a significant difference to our funds and what we can achieve as a Scout Group. The basic rate of tax is 20%, so this means that if you give £10 using Gift Aid, it's worth £12.50 to the Group. For donations between 6 April 2008 and 5 April 2011 5th Gosport Sea Scout Group will also get a separate government supplement of 3p on every pound you give. Whilst these amounts might not seem much, it amounts to over £20 per annum per child which is a whopping £160 over the course of a single child's scouting career at the 5th (assuming they join Beavers at 6 and leave Scouts at 14). If every child's subscription is paid through the Gift Aid Scheme it will generate approximately £800 each year for our Scout Group and the more who join the scheme, the more we can claim from HMRC.

The income generated as a result of Gift Aid will enable us to continue with our current activities, replace some of our equipment and resources, and hopefully limit the size of future increases in subs.

Please return your completed Gift Aid Form to your child's Beaver / Cub / Scout Leader as soon as possible.

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Registered Charity No. 302244

This page was last updated on 22 Feb 2010

5th Gosport Sea Scout Group is supported by

The Leslie Sell Charitable Trust