Do you pay tax on any part of your income? If you do than you can easily, and at no additional cost to yourself, increase the amount that you contribute to the parish coffers through gift aiding your donation. Because the Catholic Church is registered as a charity it can claim back from the Inland Revenue the tax that you have paid on your donation – but only if gift aid that donation. The procedure is really quite simple and straightforward. You decide on how much you will give each week – no matter how small or big – it just has to be the same amount each week. You can change the amount every time you renew your tax covenant. You then fill out a simple – it really is, for anything to do with the Inland Revenue – form that just confirms who you are and that you will be donating the agreed amount each week. And that is all there is to it. The form is available from the Parish Office. You can contribute via the Sunday Mass collections and the gift aid envelopes or via a direct debit or standing order arrangement with your bank or building society. The amount that you are contributing is kept confidential and is not disclosed to any third party. All the Collection Counters see on their form is a number which corresponds to the number on your gift aid envelope, if you are donating by this method. The weekly amount collected via the envelopes is given in the Weekly Bulletin as “GA” under the Parish Offerings.
