Give As You Earn

An extension of Gift Aid is the Give As You Earn (GAYE) scheme. GAYE enables employees to give to any U.K. charity straight from their salary before tax.

Like Gift Aid, it enables charities to receive their tax benefit back, but unlike Gift Aid this is not capped at 20%. So if you are luckily enough to be in a higher rate tax bracket we can benefit even more from the government.

Give As You Earn is reliant on givers to set up the scheme via their employer. To help in this process:

• Firstly, if you are a basic rate tax payer (20%) and are already giving via Gift Aid please do not change. This is well set up and established and we are already claiming back from the government the maximum we can.
• If you are a higher rate tax payer please investigate if your employer has an established GAYE scheme on which you can enrol.
• Assuming they do, all you need to do is register, select Zeo as the beneficiary (Charity No. 1164774) and update for the amount to be given.
• Assuming individuals want to give the same net amount you need to ‘gross up’ the amount you currently give by your tax rate. For example:
  • An individual currently gives £100 per month via gift aid which means a further £25 is claimed back from the government.
  • The individual is a higher tax rate payer in the 40% band.
  • When enrolling on GAYE, to give the same net amount (after tax) the giver needs to ‘gross up’ the £100 they currently give via Gift Aid. In this instance £100/0.6= £166.66.
  • This amount goes out before tax so the ‘impact’ on the individual remains £100 but the charity gets more money (£41.66 per month in this case) – a win-win for all!

GAYE is slightly complex and dependent on your employer providing such a scheme so do contact us if you have any questions.