Splitting a charitable donation for Gift Aid

Can I tell a charity to gift aid only part of a larger donation because I won't be paying enough tax to cover the whole donation? I haven't Gift Aided the donation (made in 2023-24) at all so far because I thought this might be the situation. Imagine (for simplicity) that the donation was £3,000. After all other taxable income and allowances are reported, and after the Gift Aid on my smaller charitable donations is taken in to account, my provisional tax calculation (return not yet submitted) shows that I will pay, say, £510 tax - sufficient to Gift Aid at least £2,000, but not £3,000. I will be a basic rate taxpayer in this tax year year. If I had made, say, three donations each of £1,000 on successive dates of 1st, 2nd, 3rd July, I could quite legally instruct the charity that the two donations on or after 2nd July are to be Gift Aided, and no others, but I didn't think of that at the time. Instructing the charity to claim Gift Aid on only £2000 of the £3000 achieves the same effect - but is that acceptable to HMRC?

Hi,
No, the charity can only claim for all of the Gift Aid. You in turn, declare in your tax return how much you gifted with Gift Aid to the charity. If you have not paid enough tax to cover the Gift Aid, Self Assessment will work how much extra tax you need to pay to cover the gift aid.
Thank you.

Thanks for the reply but I don't think you read my question insufficient detail, or perhaps I wasn't clear. The large donation has not so far been Gift Aided. The charity does not hold a declaration from me. I would like to give them the declaration but I can see that, after everything else on my draft tax return is taken into account, I will only be paying sufficient tax to cover approximately two thirds of the donation. I don't wish to pay a considerable amount of extra tax just in order that you can pass it onto the charity, that makes no sense to me. Is there any reason why I can't give the charity a declaration for that specific donation stating that I wish to only Gift Aid a specific amount, which will be the amount for which I will have paid enough tax? If not, why not? As in the example I gave, if I had split the donation originally into smaller parts on different dates, it would be acceptable to start gift aiding from a date to include only those elements for which I had paid sufficient tax. Charities sometimes split donations for Gift Aid purposes, for example to remove an element of a subscription which is considered to be for the members benefit. Thanks

Here's another example. At a fund-raising event for a charity, the organisers collected many small donations (mostly in cash in buckets. However, a few people who wanted to give larger donations were asked if they were in a position to gift aid them. Some said they were and these folk filled in Gift Aid declaration forms for the donated amount. The organisers subsequently transferred a single amount equivalent to the total collected to the charity (let's say £1500), together with the Gift Aid declarations (say for £175), The charity will claim Gift aid on £175 of donations and has the paperwork to support this. I believe this (a real case except for the numbers) is all in order. If so, how can it not be in order for a single donation from an individual, to be split similarly into an amount on which Gift Aid can be claimed and an amount on which it can't, as I originally asked?

Hi,
You can see guidance here:
Tax relief when you donate to a charity
You need to ensure your payment actually qualifies before you can claim. If it does, then it is up to you how much you decalre on the return. If it does not, you cannot claim anything.
Thank you.