What employers need to know

Why payroll giving?

A successful payroll giving scheme is a great way of demonstrating your company’s commitment both to its employees and the wider community. It can enhance your employee relations, improve morale and teamwork and generate a positive public perception of your company.

Setting up the scheme

It doesn’t cost anything to set up a payroll giving scheme. In fact the only cost in setting it up is the time taken to administer it and you can claim tax relief for this as an allowable expense.

Implementing the scheme

All you need to do is sign up with a payroll giving agency approved by HM Revenue & Customs and they will distribute your employees’ donations to their nominated charities.

The payroll giving agencies charge a small administration fee for processing donations but you can choose to cover this so that your employees’ nominated charities receive the full donation from your employees. You can also claim tax relief for this cost as an allowable expense.

What the Payroll Manager needs to know

You will need to add a column to your payroll before tax and after National Insurance – this will be to input deductions when employees choose to join the scheme. The deduction made is the total amount authorised by the individual employee.

When working with Sharing the Caring, the payroll department does not need to know which charities your employees have chosen to support. Each pay period the following should be sent to your payroll giving agency:

• one cheque/BACS payment for the total employee donations deducted
• list of all donors including payroll or other reference number, donor’s initial and surname and the gross deduction (the payroll giving agency will advise on the preferred format for sending donations and listings)
  

Our role

We offer a free service to raise awareness of your payroll giving scheme among employees. We will inform your payroll giving agency of your employees’ donation instructions and inform the nominated charities that they will be receiving donations. We then return the original forms to your payroll department.