To put this into context, for a £5,000 donation to a charity, the charity will receive £6,250 from their reclamation of the basic tax rate. Taxpayers can also claim tax relief from this donation under two options. If you are in the 40% tax bracket, then you are eligible to claim £1,250 (£6,250 x 20%) and if you are an additional rate taxpayer paying 45% tax then you can claim £1,562.50 in tax relief ((£6,250 x 20%) + (£6,250 x 5%)). 

If you come under either of these categories, then you are also able to carry back your charitable donations to the previous tax year. To do this, you must request the carrying back of the donation before or alongside the completion of your previous years’ self-assessment return.

This means that if you gifted money to charity within the current tax year of 2021-2022 ending on the 5th of April 2022, then you will be able to accelerate your repayment of any tax with relation to charitable donations. This strategy can be beneficial, especially to maximise tax relief if you will not be paying higher tax rates this year but have done in the previous year.

To be applicable for this tax relief, your donations must qualify for gift aid. For this to be the case, the total of your donations from the current and previous tax years combined must not exceed four times what you paid in tax for the previous year. If you do not complete your own tax returns, then you must use a P810 form to claim the relief.