I have been making payments by direct debit to Cancer Research and Help the Aged and now need to put these items on my tax return. Am I correct in thinking I can do it either as:
What is the most efficient method?
Makes no difference whether you paid by direct debit or any other method, what matters is that they should have been made under Gift Aid.
You don't itemise them, you just give a total in boxes 15A.1 and 15A.5. It's really only relevant if you're either a HRTP (since this is the mechanism by which you get back the extra 18%, it widens your standard rate band) or in danger of being a less-than-SRTP (since it might mean you have to pay extra tax, since the charity would get back more tax from the taxman than you've actually paid).
Please explain how you think this would work. Sounds like a scam. Dressing up a personal donation as a business donation would just complicate the paperwork. Don't do it, and the end result would be the same.
Definitely (1). But don't forget to make a Gift Aid declaration to the charities in question. They can be retro-active to when Gift Aid was introduced, 6th April erm erm 2001(?).
Although the notes to Question 15A say you should fill in the boxes even if not claiming HR relief, I reckon that if you're squarely in or near the middle of the middle tax band, you can just leave it. I'm never sure which of my donations are under Gift Aid and which aren't, and keeping track of them all is too tedious.
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