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Gift Aid-Remember gift aid when donating to charity in the UK

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Do you donate to charity?

Perhaps you do when there has been a significant disaster, such as the Haitian earthquake of January 2010. Then again, you may give a regular monthly amount of money to a favourite charity. This could be to a help support a child.

At one time I did this to a charity for an older person. The scheme was to, in a financial way, adopt a grandparent. I had never had any grandparents myself, and so this charity appealed to me. The older people were from poor countries and many had to try to carry on working a little in order to survive.

There is no doubting that giving money to charities is great for all concerned.

No matter how small your donation, it can make a difference. What may seem like peanuts to you, could be a vertiable fortune in a foreign land.

However, there is an easy way for you to give more money in the UK, without it costing you a penny.

You will need to be a UK tax payer. If you are a UK resident who is unemplyed or retired, this may not be you. However, most people these days fall into the tax paying category. After all the government does not let many escape.

When you make a donation to charity, you should be asked if you are a tax payer. If you are filling in a charitable donation, direct debit form there will usually be a box to tick. Not everyone will want to tick this box but I am not sure why.

When you tick that you are a UK tax payer, and prepared to let the charity reclaim your tax, you, in effect, give more money.

Gift Aid, as it is called, will increase your cash donation considerably.

For example:-

£10 will become £12.80

£100 will become £128.00

£1,000 will become £1,280.00

These example use the current British tax system. This of course could change. In the 2010 budget, this Gift Aid could be increased, or then again it may decrease. If the UK has a change of government, with this year's General Election, anything could happen.

However, as of early February 2010, Gift Aid is still something which you can, and hopefully will, utilise in order to maximise your charitable donations.