How a lodge reclaims Gift Aid on dues, alms, and donations

Record every eligible gift when it arrives, keep a valid Gift Aid declaration where HMRC requires one, split dues so only the charitable portion is claimed, write unnamed small cash against the meeting that took it, then file the claim and store the pack where a successor can find it.

The lodge, or the body that actually holds the charity registration, files with HMRC. The reclaim lands in that charity's bank account. Software can prepare the pack. It should not take the money. A destination for later giving, including a Masonic Charitable Foundation Relief Chest, does not assemble those records on the lodge's behalf.

A successful lodge treats this as a calendar, not a spring panic. The published illustration on LodgePay's pricing and Gift Aid pages only exists if each dues run and each festive board was written down when the money moved. A tin that never became a line cannot be reclaimed. A sub with no split cannot be claimed in full. A named gift with no declaration is not Gift Aid.

We re-checked the public GOV.UK Gift Aid pages on 10 September 2026 before repeating these facts. HMRC's Gift Aid scheme lets a UK charity reclaim 25 pence for every £1 given by a UK taxpayer who has made a valid declaration. That is public HMRC practice. It is not a lodge custom, and this page will not invent a Provincial by-law about it.

GOV.UK tells charities that a declaration should state that the donor has paid the same amount or more in Income Tax or Capital Gains Tax in that tax year, and that the donor agrees Gift Aid should be claimed. The declaration must include a description of the gift and state the name of the charity, the donor's full name, and the donor's full home address including a postal code. GOV.UK currently tells charities to keep a record of declarations for six years after the most recent donation you claimed Gift Aid on. Follow HMRC if that published period changes for your charity.

Gift Aid applies to a genuine charitable gift. A membership fee is not automatically a gift. Lodges that treat part of the annual subscription as a donation can claim only on that charitable portion, and only where a valid declaration is on file. This page will not tell you the lawful percentage for your lodge. Neighbouring lodges may split differently. Copying them without looking at your own resolution and charity status does not create a record you can defend. The split job has its own note: how a Treasurer splits dues so Gift Aid can be claimed.

The Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme is a different HMRC route. GOV.UK, re-checked on the same day, describes GASDS as a way to claim on small donations without a per-donor declaration, subject to HMRC's published conditions, including who can claim and what records to keep. LodgePay's published copy states an annual GASDS allowance of up to £8,000. We are not adding a higher figure, and we are not inventing a lodge-specific cap. Check HMRC for the conditions that apply to your charity in the year you file. The night-count job has its own note: how a lodge reclaims GASDS on festive-board cash.

Those are the public facts this year-guide is allowed to use. Everything else on this page is officer practice: who owns the file, when the declaration is taken, how the split meets the paid row, how the tin is counted, and how a successor opens the pack. It is not a ruling from UGLE or a Province.

Lodges commonly treat three streams as in scope. We describe them as officer practice, not as a ruling from Grand Lodge.

Dining is usually a meal cost. A raffle may be a lodge social account. Only the money the lodge treats as a charitable collection belongs in a Gift Aid or GASDS conversation. Decide that on the night, in writing, not in a later argument. This page will not invent a rule that every pound taken in the dining room is a gift.

A waiver is a decision, not a deleted row. If the lodge remits a brother's subscription, the charitable portion was not given. Putting it in the pack because the split is a formula is how totals inflate. A leaver who paid part of the year did not give a full-year gift. A late payer belongs in the year the money arrived, not the year you wished he had paid.

Unnamed small cash is not a named Gift Aid line. It may be GASDS if your charity meets HMRC's published conditions and someone counted the tin. It is not a way around a missing declaration on a named donor. Card and online gifts on the same evening already have a processor record and, often, a name. When a declaration exists, they stay on Gift Aid. Do not dump card takings into GASDS to save matching.

Without a valid declaration, Gift Aid on a named gift does not run. The declaration is a HMRC document, not a lodge custom and not a Chest form we will invent. It has to identify the donor and confirm they are a UK taxpayer who understands the terms. The wording job, the storage job, and the way that paper meets this year's gifts are already written on how a lodge takes a Gift Aid declaration. This year-guide only needs the test the Treasurer must pass in committee.

The Treasurer should be able to open a named member and see the declaration, the date it was taken, and whether it still applies to this year's eligible gifts. He should be able to open two members who paid the same amount, show a declaration on one and none on the other, and see Gift Aid only on the first member's charitable portion. If the process cannot show that difference, the lodge will either under-claim or invent a claim.

The usual failure is not wording. It is timing and storage. The paper lives in a folder from 2019. The scan lives in a Secretary inbox. Nobody matches it to this year's dues run or to a named donation on installation night. Officers then either skip the claim or guess. A valid declaration that nobody can find is the same as no declaration for the purpose of filing.

A working process is dull and sufficient. Take the declaration once, store it against the member, and apply it to later eligible gifts. When a brother has not declared, do not invent a tick because the rest of the dues run looks clean. Ask, or leave that gift out of the pack. If a declaration is cancelled, or a donor's tax position changes, stop applying it. GOV.UK expects donors to tell the charity if they want to cancel, if their name or address changes, or if they no longer pay enough tax.

Keep the declarations and the gift list for the period HMRC requires. GOV.UK, re-checked on 10 September 2026, says six years after the most recent donation you claimed Gift Aid on. LodgePay's own product copy states seven years for Gift Aid records. Use the stricter of what HMRC and your own charity require. Follow HMRC if their published retention period differs.

Annual subscriptions are the largest regular figure on most lodge books. They are also the easiest to claim wrongly. Membership fees and charitable donations are not the same thing. Gift Aid applies to the donation, not to a private club fee. How the lodge writes that split, and how it sits on every paid row, is already written on how a Treasurer splits dues. This year-guide only needs what the reclaim pack will ask.

The officer decision happens before software. The lodge, or its charity, decides what portion of the sub is a gift. The Treasurer then needs that split on every paid member, every year, not in a side spreadsheet that drifts from the bank. The written decision should be dull: the membership fee, the charitable donation, the total a brother is asked to pay, and the charity that will file. If the lodge later changes the split, date the change. Do not silently edit last year's paid rows.

A clean year looks like this. The dues run goes out with the split already set. Payments come in by card, bank, or recorded cash. Each paid row shows how much was charitable. Gift Aid is computed only where a declaration exists. Late payers and waivers stay visible so the claim is not padded. Instalments still need the same declaration on each charitable slice, or a lasting declaration that already covers those gifts. Choose the method the document actually supports, and do not change the method in March because the pack is due.

If the Treasurer has a declaration but no split, or a split but no declaration, that row should stay out of the claim. The declaration answers whether this named donor is a UK taxpayer who has agreed Gift Aid on gifts to this charity. The split answers whether any of the subscription was a gift. Both answers have to be yes before a dues line belongs in the Gift Aid pack.

Dinner collections are where reclaim usually dies. Cash goes in a tin, then a paying-in book, then a guess in April. Named card gifts are easier if they sit on the same meeting as the dining answer. Unnamed cash is a different HMRC route. How the tin is counted, written, and banked is already written on how a lodge reclaims GASDS on festive-board cash. This year-guide only needs the distinction the pack will have to defend.

A brother who puts a named donation on a card, or hands the Treasurer an envelope with his name, is not anonymous cash. If a valid Gift Aid declaration is on file, that gift is ordinary Gift Aid: 25 pence on every £1, as HMRC publishes. Do not drop his name to make the tin simpler. If the gift has a name but no declaration, ask for one or leave the gift out. If the gift is anonymous, it is not a Gift Aid line.

GASDS lets eligible charities reclaim a Gift Aid equivalent on small cash donations without a per-donor declaration, subject to HMRC's published conditions. LodgePay's public pricing and Gift Aid copy already state an allowance of up to £8,000 a year. We are not adding a new figure. The scheme still needs a cash record for the night: the tin counted, the total written against that meeting, and the same figure banked. GOV.UK, re-checked on 10 September 2026, still expects a record of the total collected, the date of the collection, and the date it was paid into a bank account.

GASDS does not replace declarations on dues and named gifts. It does not repair a dues row with no charitable split. It does not mean that a Chest form completed the lodge year. Two officers should count on the night, agree a figure, and write that figure against the meeting before the room is packed away. They should not take the tin home to sort later. Card and online gifts stay on the Gift Aid side when a declaration exists. The schemes are not interchangeable.

Lodges do not leave Gift Aid unclaimed because they dislike money. They leave it because three records never meet: a valid declaration, a decided charitable portion of the annual sub, and a cash line for the dinner tin. That diagnosis is already written on why lodges leave Gift Aid unclaimed. This year-guide only needs the consequence for filing.

A declaration in a folder, a split in a side note, and a tin in a cupboard are three good intentions. The claim needs them on the same paid gift. That is why handover fails. The next Treasurer inherits passwords and a paying-in book that does not explain April. The lodge then files nothing, or files a guess.

Ownership should be named. Treasurer, Charity Steward, or both. A job that is everyone's is nobody's. We are not inventing a UGLE office rule. We are describing a small organisation that wants a successor. Write the owner's name where the split is written. If two officers share the desk, write which of them files.

A successful lodge that already uses a Masonic Charitable Foundation Relief Chest does not have to abandon it to run Gift Aid. The Chest is a real, respected destination and a stewardship path for charitable money. Declarations, the charitable split on subs, and the festive-board cash log are still the lodge's operational work. Those two jobs, and why they are not rivals, are already written on how a lodge uses a Relief Chest and still runs Gift Aid.

This page will not invent Chest fees, Chest features, or a claim that one product replaces the other. MCF's public pages and PDFs already cover Gift Aid on donations into a Chest. Officers already know those papers. A Chest form is a declaration for gifts that go into a Chest. It is not automatically the lodge year's declaration desk for dues and named gifts that never entered the Chest, and it does not count the dinner tin.

A lodge can use a Chest and still leave Gift Aid unclaimed if nobody captured declarations or counted the tin. A lodge can run a careful Gift Aid year and still send grants through a Chest. If two officers disagree about where charitable money should later sit, they should write the destination down. They should not pause the taking of declarations until the argument ends. The claim pack and a later transfer to a Chest can move on different calendars.

LodgePay, when you reach it at the end of this page, sits beside that choice. It is not a protest against the Chest. The Gift Aid product desk says the same thing in product language. This year-guide will not start a sales war in the middle of the Treasurer's calendar.

The lodge or the charity that is registered with HMRC files the claim. Some lodges use a Provincial arrangement. Some then pay charitable money into a Relief Chest. Those are destination and stewardship choices. They are not a reason to skip the operational record.

If the lodge has no charity registration and files through a Provincial body, say so in the same place you write the split. The split is still a lodge record. The destination of the reclaim is a filing choice. Those are not the same sentence. This page will not invent a Provincial rule that says who must file.

LodgePay's published position, when you get to the tool, is that it prepares an HMRC-ready export. The lodge files. The reclaim goes to the lodge or province bank account. LodgePay does not touch the money. This article will not invent a Chest receiving the HMRC payment on the lodge's behalf unless your own arrangement already says so.

When you file, a second officer should read the totals against the declarations, the dues split, and the tin lines. Store the submission with those documents for the retention period you must keep. A pack that only the sitting Treasurer can explain is the same class of problem as a 2019 folder.

Treat reclaim as a calendar, not a hunt in the weeks before filing. The published £1,125 illustration is a dues run plus eight boards. That only exists if each of those events was written down when it happened.

A new Treasurer, arriving after installation, should be able to open this year's gifts and answer three questions without telephoning the previous team. Which gifts were given. Which of them have a valid declaration. Where the pack lives, and who files it. If those answers require a Secretary inbox, a Chest assumption, or a memory of the tin, the year is not yet a file.

The desk is ordinary. Member ledger: who paid, what was charitable, declaration yes or no. Meeting ledger: dining, named gifts, cash counted. Filing pack: what you will send to HMRC, stored with the declarations. If those three disagree, you will rebuild the year.

Access should be limited to the officers who need it. The Treasurer and Charity Steward need the file. The whole committee does not need a folder of home addresses forwarded on a thread. That is ordinary data care for a charity holding addresses, not a Craft rule. This page will not ask you to put private lodge business into a tax pack.

Minutes are a lodge record of business. They are not a Gift Aid evidence file. Do not treat a recollection that the lodge discussed charity as a declaration, a split, or a tin count. The pack has to show the document, the paid gift, and the night's cash line.

LodgePay already publishes the only illustration this page will repeat. We re-checked the live pricing and Gift Aid pages on 10 September 2026. Most lodges leave £1,000 or more unclaimed each year. A typical 30-member lodge reclaims £1,125 a year: £225 from dues and £900 from eight festive boards, plus GASDS on cash up to £8,000 a year.

Those amounts assume the lodge recorded the payments, held valid declarations on the named gifts, applied a decided dues split, and counted the tin. A 2019 folder that never met this year's dues run cannot produce the £225. A Chest form that covered money into a Chest cannot invent the £900 if those boards were never matched to a donor record. A tin that was never written against a meeting cannot support the GASDS line.

Use your own books in committee. If your lodge is not thirty members, or did not hold eight boards, the illustration is not your claim. Run membership count times your charitable portion, only where declarations exist. Add meeting cash actually counted, not hoped. Do not invent a higher figure, and do not invent a Province average.

The same live pages publish LodgePay Essentials from £149 a month billed annually, which is £1,788 a year, or £169 monthly. Complete is from £229. Group is from £349. Province is from £2,000 a month plus £35 per lodge. The Gift Aid illustration of £1,125 is smaller than the annual Essentials figure. The reclaim does not pay the subscription. Do not treat a typical lodge figure as a business case that funds the platform. Mooov processing fees pass through at cost. There is no setup fee on the published pricing page.

Named tools are real. Buy the one that publishes the job you actually have. We re-checked public pages on 10 September 2026. We will not award Gift Aid reclaim unless those live pages say it, and we will not trash a cheaper correct cash book.

The Working Tools (theworkingtools.co.uk) is a real secretary operating system. The public pricing page, re-checked on 10 September 2026, still listed £5.00 a month, with a 30-day trial stated on the treasurer pages. Delegates can have their own login. The public treasurer page describes a purpose-built cash book: income and outgoings, subscriptions and dining fees against members, who has paid, email reminders, charitable donations tracked separately from general funds, and year-end figures as branded PDFs. The public homepage, pricing page, and treasurer page did not describe Gift Aid declarations, GASDS reclaim, or an HMRC-ready claim pack. A cash book can record that someone paid. That is not the same as a declaration stored on a named member, applied to this year's eligible gifts, with a pack a successor can open. The compare page for The Working Tools stays on that buying fork.

LodgeAccounting (lodgetreasurer.co.uk) is a treasurer-books product. Its public site did not publish a price when we last checked, so this guide will not invent one. Use it if the lodge only needs books. Do not assume it files Gift Aid unless their own pages say so.

Lodge Master, Lodgi, Lodgical, and Lodge Manager are meeting and admin tools some lodges already run. This article will not award them Gift Aid features we have not seen on their public pages. An MCF Relief Chest is a destination for charitable money, not a substitute for the four records.

A folder can hold paper. It cannot apply a 2019 sheet to this year's paid rows unless someone does that matching by hand every time a gift arrives. A spreadsheet of ticks can record that someone once said yes. It is not the HMRC document. When the tick and the scan disagree, the Treasurer has to rebuild the year from two files that were never required to stay together.

Once the lodge owns taking the declaration, storing it on the member, applying the dues split, counting the tin, and assembling a pack, software is a way to stop that work living in one brother's laptop. LodgePay is the tool at the end of that decision, not the opening line. The Gift Aid product desk and the Treasurer desk already state the product facts this page is allowed to use.

LodgePay records a Gift Aid declaration against the member and applies it to later eligible gifts. It can split an annual subscription into a membership portion and a charitable portion so Gift Aid is computed only on the eligible part, and only where a declaration exists. It records festive-board named gifts and cash on the meeting, including GASDS on unnamed cash up to the published £8,000 allowance, subject to HMRC's conditions. It produces an HMRC-ready export and keeps lodge files. Card payments go through Mooov. The lodge files. The reclaim goes to the lodge or province bank account. LodgePay does not take the money.

LodgePay's own product copy states Gift Aid records are retained for seven years. GOV.UK's published declaration retention, re-checked on 10 September 2026, is six years after the most recent donation you claimed on. Follow HMRC if their published period differs for your charity.

Published prices, as on the pricing page, are Essentials from £149 a month billed annually (or £169 monthly), which is £1,788 a year, Complete from £229, Group from £349, and Province from £2,000 a month plus £35 per lodge. Those figures do not create a declaration you never took, a split the lodge never decided, or a tin that was never counted. The typical 30-member illustration is £1,125 a year. The reclaim does not pay the subscription.

A Relief Chest, if you use one, remains a destination. LodgePay sits beside that choice. It does not replace MCF, and this page will not pretend it does. If you only need a cheap secretary cash book, The Working Tools at £5.00 a month may be enough, and you should buy it with a clear conscience. You will still add Gift Aid yourself, because their live pages do not describe that reclaim.

If you cannot open this year's gifts, show which have a valid declaration, and hand a successor the pack, buying a platform will not file the year. That is the end of the pitch, not the start of the calendar.