Do you regularly give money to charity through a GAYE scheme? The chances are you don’t – only 1 in 34 of the UK workforce does. You probably feel guilty now don’t you? Don’t feel too bad about it, your employer is worse than you are – only 8,500 of the UK’s 4.8m employers even operate a GAYE scheme.
A recent survey by ComRes discovered that 31% of people would sign up to a GAYE scheme if their employer had one. This means that charities are missing out a potential £177m through GAYE! Perhaps employers should consider nominating a charity each year and motivate employees to get involved. The famous proverb suggests ‘charity begins at home, but it should not end there’, although someone forgot to tell the government as only 9 out 650 MPs use payroll giving.
However, although employees receive tax relief on charitable donations – employers still have to pay National Insurance Contributions on these donations. The Chartered Institute of Taxation has recommended that is reformed so that employers receive relief too.
If this gets the go ahead then we could see a lot more employers encouraged to operate GAYE schemes through Payroll Giving.
