Charity gift aid claims and tax relief amounts

The request was successful.

Dear HM Revenue and Customs,

After reviewing similar type requests, I have noticed that you have avoided responses that conflict with alternate legislation to avoid identifying a person/corporate entity.

Hence I word my requests carefully and seek to avoid your naming these....as I seek to establish the scale of potential economic crime within the charity sector.

I request the following:

1. How many charities are registered with HMRC in 2018 and 2019?

2. To prevent fraud: Do u have an automated process or similar (possibly an SLA) whereby you are informed of a removed / suspended charity (or whatever the appropriate category is) charity from the Charity Commission listing?- which thereby prevents fraudulent applications?

3. What is your average timescale for payment of gift aid?

4. How many gift aid applications do you receive per annum?

5. How many are gift aid applications are automated ie: online? How many are not?

6. How many charities were paid gift aid in 2016, 2017, 2018?

7. Please list the top 10 largest gift aid claims/returns for 2018 nationally without specifying persons?

8. Please list the Top 10 largest gift aid claims/returns amounts in Lancashire for 2018 without specifying persons

9. Please list the top 10 largest gift aid claims/returns amounts paid to Foreign aid type charities (ie: non UK) for 2018 without specifying persons?

10. Please list the top 10 individual tax relief amounts approved by the HMRC for 2018 without naming or specifying persons?

11 Please number how many charity fraud HMRC investigations were conducted in 2016, 2017, 2018? And what was the total economic crime values for each year?

12. How many investigations led to prosecution 2016, 2017, 2018?

13. How much money was recovered or prevented from being paid as a result of these investigations in 2016,2017,2018?

Yours faithfully,

M Martin

foi.team@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk on behalf of Central FOI Team, HM Revenue and Customs

Our ref: FOI2019/00800

Dear M. Martin,

Freedom of Information Act 2000 Acknowledgement

Thank you for your communication of 27th March which has been passed to
HMRC's Freedom of Information Team.

We have allocated the above reference which you should quote if you need
to contact us.

The Team will arrange for a reply to be sent to you which will either
comply with HMRC's obligations under Freedom of Information Act or, if we
think it's an enquiry that we don't need to address under the terms of the
Act, let you know why. If it is the latter we will, if possible, pass it
on to a more appropriate part of the Department for answer.

Yours sincerely

HMRC Freedom of Information Act Team

foi.team@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk on behalf of Central FOI Team, HM Revenue and Customs

1 Attachment

Dear M. Martin,

I am writing in response to your request for information, received 27th
March.

Yours sincerely,

HMRC Freedom of Information Team

Dear [email address] on behalf of Central FOI Team,

I accept your amended questions and await your response to those amended questions. Please can you provide them.

I can appreciate the logic in most of your responses re time issues however your response re point 13 is a little bizarre given that HMRC are not averse to publicising their numerous fantastic successes and your response would merely highlight HMRCs overall success. In fact in a historical article in 2012 HMRC declared they had detected and foiled several hundred fraudulent gift aid claims from charities totalling more than £10m per annum in each of the last two years 2011 and 2012 which was confirmed by the head of HMRC’s charities technical team, readily available through search engines. It is fair to say that HMRC refused to publish the details of detections and prosecutions requested, saying that to do so would assist the fraudsters’ efforts to cheat the government out of tax receipts. I will accept your decision yet I do personally feel the public interest and confidence in HMRC would be better served in continuing to show your robustness in safeguarding public money from fraudsters.

Thank you again.

Yours sincerely,

M Martin

Dear HM Revenue and Customs,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of HM Revenue and Customs's handling of my FOI request 'Charity gift aid claims and tax relief amounts

I have not received a response or acknowledgement of receipt to my amended request dated 16 April 2019 which follows your suggested amendments. I would be grateful for the amended information requested.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...

Yours faithfully,

M Martin

foi.team@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk on behalf of Central FOI Team, HM Revenue and Customs

Our ref: FOI2019/00941

Dear M. Martin,

Freedom of Information Act 2000 Acknowledgement

Thank you for your communication of 17th April which has been passed to
HMRC's Freedom of Information Team.

We have allocated the above reference which you should quote if you need
to contact us.

The Team will arrange for a reply to be sent to you which will either
comply with HMRC's obligations under Freedom of Information Act or, if we
think it's an enquiry that we don't need to address under the terms of the
Act, let you know why. If it is the latter we will, if possible, pass it
on to a more appropriate part of the Department for answer.

Yours sincerely

HMRC Freedom of Information Act Team

Dear HM Revenue and Customs,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of HM Revenue and Customs's handling of my FOI request 'Charity gift aid claims and tax relief amounts'.

I'm still awaiting a response to your suggested amended questions. May I please have them?

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...

Yours faithfully,

M Martin

foi.team@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk on behalf of Central FOI Team, HM Revenue and Customs

Our ref: FOI2019/00941

Dear M Martin,

Thank you for your communication 07 May 2019 which has been passed to
HMRC's Freedom of Information Team.

Please note in line with the FOIA process, your email received 16 April
2019 asking us to respond to our "suggested amended questions" has been
logged as a new request.

Therefore, the FOIA 20 working days timescale starts again. This means
HMRC's target date for response is 19 May 2019.

We will response accordingly under reference: FOI2019/00941

Yours sincerely

HMRC Freedom of Information team

show quoted sections

foi.team@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk on behalf of Central FOI Team, HM Revenue and Customs

1 Attachment

Dear M. Martin,

I am writing in response to your request for information, received 16th
April.

Yours sincerely,

HMRC Freedom of Information Team