NMDC response to HM Treasury Gift Aid Consultation

The National Museum Directors' Conference has responded to the Treasury consultation on Gift Aid.

For further details of the consultation see the HM Treasury website.

The NMDC response points out that national museums cannot claim Gift Aid on all donations as a significant proportion of donors are not UK tax payers, and that they could use Gift Aid more successfully to build relationships with donors if the level of benefits that can be offered to donors were less restrictive.

The response makes recommendations that would enable museums to use Gift Aid more effectively:

Friends schemes: The restriction in the Revenues rules to a member's spouse, partner or family member should be removed to allow unnamed persons to attend as their guests.

Major donors: NMDC asks HM Treasury to consider allowing either an uncapped percentage of donation in benefit to the donor, or for separate benefit levels for major donors and patrons.

Recovering Gift Aid on ticket sales: The rules should be simplified so that either all exhibition ticket sales can be gift aided, or none at all. If HM Treasury does choose to enable museums to claim gift aid on exhibition ticket sales, the 10% premium on ticket price should be removed.

Extending tax incentives to gifts of objects: As a next step in developing the ability of museums to encourage giving, incentives to encourage gifts of objects should be considered by HM Treasury.

To download the full NMDC response click here.