Charitable giving and tax reliefs for individuals

As the tax year drew to a close many individual taxpayers would have been thinking about ways to mitigate their UK tax exposure for 2021-22. One way in which they might have done this was by making charitable donations. This is the first article in a two-part series looking at charitable reliefs and focuses on UK resident and domiciled individuals. The next one will consider international issues.

This article does not cover the position for companies which make charitable donations nor does it consider the payroll giving scheme and gift aid scheme for donated gifts from individuals.

Definition of a charity for tax purposes

A charity is defined in F(No1)A 2010 Sch 6 para 1(1) as a body of persons or trust that broadly meets all of the following conditions:

a) it is established for charitable purposes only as defined in the Charities Act...