Joint portal with Charity Commission abandoned

The government has abandoned a project to create a single portal through which charities could register simultaneously at the Charity Commission and HMRC. Charities with income above £5 000 must register separately with both to claim gift aid and other tax relief.

In the minutes of the June 2018 charity tax forum at HMRC the department confirmed the portal would ‘no longer be taken forward’. It said this was because co-operation between the two organisations was ‘much improved’. Further it stated that given that on average a charity did not register with HMRC until about nine years after doing so with the commission a joint portal was ‘unlikely to benefit the majority of charities’.

The National Audit Office and the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee had recommended a joint registration process after enquiries into charities that had tried to exploit the gift aid system....