# charity.gasds
The Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) top-up a charity or CASC can
claim for one tax year, on small cash and contactless donations it has no Gift
Aid declarations for.
The top-up is worked out like Gift Aid (Small Charitable Donations Act 2012
s1(2)): `small donations x R / (100 - R)` at the basic rate R, so £8,000 of
small donations earns £2,000 at 20%. It is paid on no more than the
**maximum donations limit**, the lower of:
- 10 times the donations the charity successfully claimed Gift Aid on in the
same tax year (the matching rule, s1(4)(a)). No Gift Aid claim, no top-up;
- the **specified amount**: £8,000 from 6 April 2016, £5,000 from 6 April 2013.
**Community buildings.** From 2017-18 a charity running charitable activities
in more than one community building may use, if it is more, the sum over its
buildings of the small donations made in person in each building's local
authority area, up to £8,000 per building (s6(2)-(3)). Pass those per-building
amounts, with no donation counted twice (s6(3A)); pass `[]` otherwise. With
one building, s6 does not apply and the limit is the ordinary one. The
matching rule still applies on top. Community building claims for earlier
years followed different rules and are an error.
`smallDonationLimit` is reported for checking the donations themselves: a
small donation is £30 or less from 6 April 2019 and £20 or less before
(Schedule para 1). This capability takes totals, so the caller keeps any gift
above that limit out of `smallDonations`.
## Decisions
- The top-up is rounded down to the penny, as in charity.gift-aid, which it
reuses for the basic rate.
- Out of scope: connected charities sharing one allowance (ss4, 9), the
eligibility conditions of s2 (a penalty in this or the last tax year
excludes a charity), and the two-year claim deadline.
Note: the task that asked for this capability put the £30 limit at 6 April
2016. The legislation says 6 April 2019 (SI 2019/337); 6 April 2016 is when
the specified amount rose to £8,000 (SI 2015/2027).
## Sources
- Small Charitable Donations Act 2012 s1 (top-up, matching rule, specified
amount), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/23/section/1 , and as it
stood on 6 April 2013 (£5,000), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/23/section/1/2013-04-06
- s6 (more than one community building), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/23/section/6
- Schedule para 1 (£30, previously £20), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/23/schedule/paragraph/1
- The Small Charitable Donations Act (Amendment) Order 2019, SI 2019/337
("increasing the small donation limit from £20 to £30 for gifts made on or
after 6th April 2019"), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/337/made
- GOV.UK, "Claim top-up payments for the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme",
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claiming-a-top-up-payment-on-small-charitable-donations