When donating items to a DEBRA store, a member of the team will ask if you would like to join the Retail Gift Aid Scheme, which allows us to claim from HMRC an additional 25p for every £1 raised from the sale of your donations. See below full details of the scheme. 

 

What is the Retail Gift Aid Scheme?

Gift Aid is a government scheme where, if you are a UK taxpayer, charities can claim from HMRC an additional 25p for every £1 cash donation received from you. Goods given to charity shops do not qualify for Gift Aid, however the Retail Gift Aid Scheme allows us to sell the goods on your behalf. If you then agree that we can keep any proceeds from the sale of your goods, this effectively converts your goods to a cash donation and we can then claim Gift Aid on the sale amount, less the commission we have to charge for acting on your behalf.

 

Who can participate in the scheme?

To participate in the Retail Gift Aid Scheme you must be a UK taxpayer and pay enough income tax and/or capital gains tax in the year to cover the Gift Aid claimed on all your donations to charities or community amateur sports groups in the tax year. Please note that should the tax you pay not cover the total Gift Aid claimed by all charities, it is your responsibility to pay any difference to HMRC.

 

I am a tax payer now – but what if my circumstances change?

We will contact you periodically to tell you how much the sale of your goods has raised. At this point you have 21 days to tell us not to claim Gift Aid because:

• your circumstances have changed and you are no longer a tax payer
• you will not pay enough income tax or capital gains tax to cover the Gift Aid claimed by all charities you donate to
• you no longer wish to participate in the scheme
• you want us to pay you the money raised from the sale of your goods less our commission + VAT (at this point you will also be removed from the Retail Gift Aid Scheme).

You can contact us at any time if you wish to withdraw from the scheme. Please keep us informed if you change your name or address.

 

What happens at the end of the 21 day period?

If we do not hear from you within 21 days of us contacting you to tell you how much we received from selling your goods, the money raised becomes eligible for Gift Aid and we will claim it from HMRC. The Gift Aid we claim will come from the tax you have already paid HMRC.

 

DEBRA’s role as your agent

DEBRA decides whether all or any of your goods are suitable for sale, and at what price. DEBRA endeavours to get the best price for your goods but if DEBRA considers all or any of your goods are unsuitable for sale, or if the goods have not sold within a reasonable period, DEBRA takes ownership of the goods and recycles or disposes of them as it sees fit. This may mean that your goods are not eligible for the Retail Gift Aid Scheme and in such cases we are not under any obligation to notify you of any proceeds accrued from such sales. We reserve the right to terminate the agency agreement at any time.

 

What we do with your data

We respect your privacy. We only use your data for administration related to the Gift Aid Scheme. We do not use your data for marketing purposes and we will never sell your data to third parties. Our privacy statement can be found here on our website. 

 

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