Charity donations by credit card

Charities might get a good deal in that the bank might offset any charges against credit balances held.Small charities might not pay any charges but then again would probably not offer donations by credit/debit cards. Eric

Be *very* wary about making donations by phone where credit cards are concerned. You can`t get your money back if their operator does a little creative input and kindly donates more than you told them.

In message , ScoobyDoo wrote

The fees would probably be lost in the in the large percentage that a lot of charities take out of donations for administration.

In message , ScoobyDoo writes

Almost certainly the credit card co will take a fee in the same way as the charity will have to pay its staff, its phone bill, its bank charges, its postage, its insurance etc.,,,,, So I dont see why the CreditCardCo should do it for free either.

Of course you bloody can - it would be fraudulent !

of course you can

Related question:

If a charity sends you direct mail, and you set up a standing order, does all the money go to the charity then? Or are there %ages lost for direct debits too? Would it be cheaper to do a standing order?

I'm counting the charities own overheads as part of the charity running costs.

The collector will be charged by Visa/Mastercard AND may deduct its own fee too. But organisations such as

Jerry

Most charities reclaim tax on donations.

Was that an echo?

All charities worth their salt should.

Quite, and although this may well "outweigh" the card fees, it in no way makes up for them, since they also reclaim tax on donations not made by card. So a charity will generally benefit less from a donation made by card than from an "equal" donation made by other means.

Not all charitable donations are eligible for tax reclamation.

Many people can't be bothered to make a Gift Aid declaration, even though this is much simpler now than it used to be in the early days of deeds of covenant.

Many donations are not traceable to individuals (e.g. "bucket" or "piggy-bank" style collections) and so Gift Aid does not apply.

Yes, granted.

I suspect there is some bending of the rules going on.

For example, admission to museums run as charities. Stirctly speaking a donation is not eligible where you are getting a benefit, but such charities define entry fees as "day memberships" and all day members get in for free.

At a memorial service all taxpayers donating to the collection got encouraged to fill in gift aid declarations. The money was just put in a bucket. I suspect the donations were attributed only to those who had filled in declarations.

I only ask because I paid by credit card and aftewards wish I had paid by debit card so that they would have received the full amount. Or possibly sent a cheque or a bank transfer.

Whilst they claim back tax on the donation that happens irrespective of the payment method. In future I'll pay by one of the above means.

Thanks all

In message , Biscit writes

It quite possible that a bank will charge a charity in the same way it charges any business account. However, DDs are easier to administer for the bank and so generally are charged out less than for receiving SOs.

The internal costs for the charity will be less for DDs than Standing Orders.

Please remember that the charities cannot claim tax back on your donation unless you expressly give them permission to do so. On the Justgiving website, the site by default asks you to allow the charity to claim "gift aid" (tax) back on your donation. On sponsor forms etc you need to tick a box (or simliar) to give the charity permission to claim tax on your behalf.

Thanks

Paul

------------------------------------------------------------- Please sponsor me for my Great Wall of China Trek in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care. Please go to

And declare you are a UK tax payer

In message , DCA writes

And pay sufficient to cover the tax reclaimed by the charity.

In message , john boyle writes

As another poster has mentioned, most, if not all, charities are only too happy to reclaim the 28% tax back and you can normally give the charity permission to do this by whatever means of donation - the only exception I can think of is collections in the street (e.g. with buckets) where the tax isn't reclaimed due to the logistical complexities involved, although I was at a Tom Robinson concert and he (and his organisers/helpers) provided appropriately marked-up envelopes [1] for everyone to put their money in before being put into buckets for a charity collection.

Donation by credit card is a more expensive (administration-wise, due to credit card charges which charge a percentage, just as they do for shop transactions) method of donation than debit card (which charge a low flat fee), cheque (fees depend on the bank that the charity is with) or cash (this also has cost involved as it takes administration time to count and bank!). I suspect Direct Debit directly to the charity is probably the best method of payment as it is low cost, straight to the recipient bank account and additionally gives the charity concerned an almost guaranteed income stream, whereas all the other methods tend to generate a far more variable income stream. However it's better to give via any method than not give at all!

Alternatively there is online schemes like