How a Treasurer splits dues so Gift Aid can be claimed

The Treasurer should be able to take a decided charitable portion of this year's subscription, apply that same split to every paid member, compute Gift Aid only where a valid declaration is on file, and leave a successor a list that explains why unpaid, waived, and undeclared rows are missing from the pack.

Those are four facts that have to meet on the same desk. The lodge decided what part of the sub is a gift. The brother paid. A HMRC declaration sits on that named donor. The paid row still shows the split after handover. If any one of those is missing, that row should stay out of the claim. Software can apply a split. It cannot invent a lodge resolution you never took, and it cannot invent a declaration you never stored.

This page is the dues-split job. The document that sits on the donor has its own note: how a lodge takes a Gift Aid declaration. The wider year of dues, festive-board alms, and cash has another: how a lodge reclaims Gift Aid on dues, alms, and donations. Stay here when the actual pain is the subscription itself.

We re-checked public HMRC Gift Aid pages on 10 September 2026. GOV.UK still states that donating through Gift Aid means charities and community amateur sports clubs can claim an extra 25 pence for every £1 given. The donor must make a valid Gift Aid declaration. Charities can claim Gift Aid on most donations, and some payments do not qualify. That is public HMRC practice. It is not a lodge by-law, and this page will not invent a UGLE or Provincial rule about it.

A private membership fee is not automatically a gift. Claiming Gift Aid on the whole sub because it is the largest number on the books is how a pack becomes hard to defend. Gift Aid applies to the charitable portion only, and only if the lodge has already decided that a split exists. A declaration does not create that split. It only answers whether this named donor is a UK taxpayer who has agreed Gift Aid on gifts to this charity.

Lodges commonly treat part of the sub as a donation. We describe that as officer practice, not as a ruling from UGLE or a Province. This guide will not tell you the lawful percentage for your lodge. HMRC publishes separate rules on when a membership subscription can qualify as a donation, including how benefits sit against the payment. Those rules belong to your charity's own position. Neighbouring lodges may split differently. Copying them without looking at your own resolution, charity status, and HMRC position does not create a record you can defend.

The Treasurer's job is to apply the lodge's decision, not to borrow someone else's arithmetic, and not to invent a figure in April because the pack is due. If the lodge has not decided that any part of the sub is a gift, there is no dues Gift Aid line to compute. Record the payment. Leave that money out of the Gift Aid pack.

Year start, or installation, is the moment. Confirm who owns Gift Aid. Confirm the charitable portion of this year's sub. Confirm who files. Write those three answers in the same place you write the dues amount. The officer decision happens in committee, not in a spreadsheet formula invented when HMRC is waiting.

The written decision should be dull enough that a new Treasurer can read it in June without a handover meeting. It should state 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 successor who cannot tell this year's decision from last year's is already reconstructing.

If the lodge has no charity registration and files through a Provincial arrangement, say so on the same paper. The split is still a lodge record. The destination of the reclaim is a filing choice. Those are not the same sentence. A lodge can decide a charitable portion and still send the reclaim, or a later grant, onward. Write both facts. Do not leave the second one as a memory of who usually handles it.

A split that lives only in one brother's laptop is the same as no split when that brother stands down. The usual hiding places are a colour-coded tab, a note on a personal drive, a chat message from last installation, or a figure the Charity Steward remembers from a conversation. None of those survive a June handover.

Put the decision where the dues amount already lives. If the lodge writes the annual sub in a year paper, the split belongs on that paper. If the dues run is raised from a member list, the split belongs on that run before the first reminder goes out. A successor should be able to open this year's paid rows and see the same figures the sitting Treasurer used, without last year's passwords.

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 names and payments, not a Craft rule. Minutes are a lodge record of business. They are not a Gift Aid evidence file, and this page will not ask you to put private lodge business into a tax pack.

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 membership and how much was charitable. Gift Aid is computed only where a declaration exists. Late payers and waivers stay on the list so the claim is not padded.

The failure mode is a side spreadsheet. Someone types the sub in one column and a guessed charity figure in another. The bank does not know. The member record does not know. In April the two files disagree, and the Treasurer rebuilds the year by hand. That reconstruction is how undeclared rows slip in, how waivers get treated as gifts, and how a successor inherits a pack he cannot explain.

The practical test is simple. Open two members who paid the same amount. One has a declaration. One does not. Only the first generates a Gift Aid line, and only on the charitable portion. If your process cannot show that difference on the paid row, you will either under-claim or invent a claim. The same test should still work after handover.

Card, bank, and recorded cash have to hit the same record. A brother who pays by bank transfer is not a different class of gift from a brother who pays by card. The split is a lodge decision about the year, not a property of the payment method. If cash is taken for a sub, write it against that member on the same day. A paying-in book that only shows a total cannot carry a charitable portion later.

Instalments change when money arrives. They should not change the lodge's decision about what part of the year is a gift. A brother paying quarterly still has a charitable portion on each receipt, or a single year split applied when the year is complete. Pick one method and write it down before the first instalment is taken.

Do not switch the method in March because the pack is due. Switching is how a first-quarter receipt is treated as membership and a last-quarter receipt is treated as a gift, or the reverse, with no paper that explains why. A successor reading those rows will not know which method was in force.

If the lodge takes money during this year toward next year's sub, that receipt is not this year's gift. Write it as a credit or as next year's row. Claiming this year's Gift Aid on money that belongs to next year's decision is how years bleed into each other. The same rule runs the other way. Do not leave next year's Treasurer to invent a split for money you already banked.

Without a valid declaration, Gift Aid on a named gift does not run. The declaration is a HMRC document. GOV.UK, re-checked on 10 September 2026, still tells donors that they need to make a Gift Aid declaration for the charity to claim, and that they must give a declaration to each charity they want to donate to through Gift Aid. The document has to identify the donor and confirm they are a UK taxpayer who understands the terms. Timing is the lodge failure more often than wording.

On a dues run the Treasurer needs three answers at once. The brother paid. The lodge had already decided the charitable portion. A valid declaration is on file for that named donor. Only then does Gift Aid belong on that row. If the Treasurer has a declaration but no split, or a split but no declaration, that row should stay out of the claim.

When a brother has not declared, do not invent a tick because the rest of the run looks clean. Ask for a declaration, or leave that gift out of the pack. A lodge that files a smaller year on documents it can show is in a better position than a lodge that pads a pack with names it cannot support.

Keep the declarations and the gift list for the period HMRC requires. GOV.UK currently tells charities to keep a record of declarations for six years after the most recent donation they claimed Gift Aid on, or six years from the end of the accounting period they relate to, depending on the page you are reading. LodgePay's published product copy states seven years for Gift Aid records. Follow HMRC if their published retention period differs for your charity. The longer how-to for taking and storing the document is how a lodge takes a Gift Aid declaration.

A waiver is a decision, not a deleted row. If the lodge remits a brother's sub, the charitable portion was not given. Putting it in the pack because the split is a formula is how totals inflate. The successor should be able to open the unpaid or waived list and see why that name is missing from the claim.

A leaver who paid part of the year needs the record of what was actually received. Do not claim a full-year gift on a half-year payment. If the lodge has a written method for a part-year sub, apply that method and write the resulting charitable portion on the paid row. If the lodge has no method, do not invent one in April. Record what arrived and leave an honest gap.

A late payer who clears in the next tax year belongs in the year he paid, not the year you wished he had paid. Wishing a January receipt back into last year's pack is how years become indefensible. The declaration does not change the date money arrived. It only answers whether the gift that did arrive can carry Gift Aid.

These are book-keeping facts, not Craft custom. A name missing from the claim should have a visible reason: unpaid, waived, undeclared, or paid in a different year. If the reason lives only in the sitting Treasurer's memory, the pack is already a reconstruction.

The pack for the subscription stream is narrower than officers sometimes hope. It holds paid charitable portions where a valid declaration exists. It does not hold membership fees. It does not hold unpaid rows. It does not hold waived rows. It does not hold undeclared gifts. It does not hold festive-board cash that was never written against a meeting.

A second officer should be able to read the pack and arrive at the same total. Size is not the argument. A thirty-member lodge still produces a dues year. Write the year as if HMRC asked to see the file, and as if the next Treasurer will open it with no handover meeting.

The registered charity files with HMRC. LodgePay, when you get to the tool, prepares an export. It does not file for you and does not receive the money. Who files, and which bank receives the reclaim, should already be written on the same paper as the split.

Festive-board alms and named donations are separate jobs. They fail in a different way. Cash goes in a tin, then a paying-in book, then a guess. Named card gifts are easier if they sit on the same meeting as the dinner. Neither job repairs a missing dues split, and a clean dues split does not count the tin.

Small unnamed cash may fall under the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme if your charity meets HMRC's published conditions. We re-checked GOV.UK's GASDS guidance on 10 September 2026. HMRC still describes a scheme for small donations, with a published maximum of £8,000 of small donations in a tax year for the basic UK-wide claim, and still excludes membership fees from that scheme. LodgePay's public copy states an allowance of up to £8,000 a year. We are not adding a new figure. GASDS does not fix a missing dues split, and it does not turn a membership fee into a small cash gift.

Named festive-board gifts stay on Gift Aid when a declaration exists. Do not dump card takings into GASDS to save the matching work. The schemes are not interchangeable. The longer year that holds dues, alms, and the tin together is how a lodge reclaims Gift Aid on dues, alms, and donations.

The Masonic Charitable Foundation Relief Chest is a real, respected destination for charitable money lodges already trust to the MCF path. Officers already know it. This page will not invent Chest fees, a feature list, or a comparison of Chest products we have not been given. If you need those facts, read the MCF's own material.

A Chest holds and gives. The dues split records what part of the sub was a gift, by whom, so someone can file with HMRC. Those are different jobs. A lodge can use both. A lodge can use a Chest and still leave the dues Gift Aid unclaimed if nobody decided the split or stored the declarations. Treating them as rivals is how officers spend a year arguing about tools instead of writing down what portion of the sub is a gift.

A Chest form, as MCF already publishes it, is a declaration for gifts that go into a Chest. That is a useful job. It is not automatically this year's lodge dues-split desk. Dues with a charitable split that never entered the Chest still need a lodge decision and a HMRC document on the lodge's own donor record if the lodge or its charity is the one filing those lines.

We will not invent a UGLE or Provincial rule that says a lodge must, or must not, use a Chest. Destination is a stewardship choice the lodge already makes. If two officers disagree about where charitable money should later sit, they should write the destination down. They should not pause the split decision until the argument ends. The claim pack and a later transfer to a Chest can move on different calendars. The longer pairing is how a lodge uses a Relief Chest and still runs Gift Aid.

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 of the split.

The reclaim lands in that charity's bank: lodge or province, as you already arrange. Sending money onward to a Chest after that is a destination step. Skipping the pack because a Chest exists is how the published miss happens. This page will not invent a Chest receiving the HMRC payment on the lodge's behalf unless your own arrangement already says so.

Two officers should be able to see the same pack and the same bank destination. If only one brother knows which account receives the reclaim, handover has already failed, even if this year's split was decided carefully.

The dues-split desk is easier to run as a year of ordinary tasks than as a hunt in the weeks before filing.

LodgePay already publishes the only illustration this page will repeat. We re-checked the public Gift Aid and pricing 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.

The £225 is the dues slice of that illustration. It assumes the lodge decided a split, recorded the payments, and held valid declarations on those named gifts. A split that exists only in a Treasurer's head cannot produce the £225. A neighbouring lodge's percentage cannot produce it either. Run the same arithmetic on your own membership and your own split. Do not quote a typical lodge to committee as if it were your books, and do not invent a higher dues reclaim.

The same pages publish Essentials from £149 a month billed annually, which is £1,788 a year, or £169 if billed monthly. Complete is from £229 a month billed annually. Group is from £349. Province is from £2,000 a month plus £35 per lodge, typically £4,500 a month. The reclaim does not pay the subscription. Say that line in committee if someone starts subtracting £1,125 from £1,788 and calling the difference a reason to skip the process. The illustration is not your books, and the subscription is not funded by a pack you have not yet assembled.

A paper register can show who paid if the tick is still visible. It cannot apply a charitable portion you never wrote down. In April the Treasurer is left guessing which names were gifts.

A spreadsheet plus a bank CSV can hold a typed amount if the column is right. The split then lives in a second tab. When the bank and the tab disagree, the Treasurer rebuilds the pack by hand. Declarations sit in a third place. Handover becomes a forensic exercise.

The MCF Relief Chest can hold and give charitable money the lodge already trusts to that path. It does not set this year's dues split, and it does not store a lodge declaration against dues that never entered the Chest. Use it as a destination. Do not treat it as the dues desk.

The Working Tools is a real secretary operating system. We re-checked its public pages on 10 September 2026. The pricing page still listed £5.00 a month and a 30-day trial. The homepage describes secretary work: member records, summons, and table plans. The treasurer features page describes a purpose-built cash book, subscriptions and dining fees against members, who has paid dues, email reminders, charitable donations tracked separately from general funds, and year-end figures for auditors. The treasurer help pages describe financial years, invoices, prepaid credits, bills, bank accounts, and reports. Those pages did not describe Gift Aid, a charitable split on subscriptions for a HMRC claim, GASDS, or an HMRC-ready export. A cash book can record that a brother paid. That is not the same as a decided split on every paid row, applied only where a declaration exists, with a pack a successor can open. We will not award them a Gift Aid reclaim their live pages do not state. The honest compare is already on this site: LodgePay and The Working Tools.

LodgeAccounting (lodgetreasurer.co.uk) is a treasurer-books product. Its public site did not publish a price when we last checked, and the pages we read did not describe Gift Aid. Use it if the lodge only needs books. Do not assume it stores a dues split for a claim pack 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.

Once the lodge has decided the charitable portion, software is a way to stop that portion living in one brother's laptop. LodgePay splits annual subscriptions into membership and charitable portions, applies Gift Aid on the eligible part when a declaration is on file, and produces an HMRC-ready export. The lodge files. The reclaim goes to the lodge or province bank account. LodgePay does not take the reclaim. Card payments go through Mooov. Standard processing fees pass through at cost.

That work sits on the Gift Aid product desk and on the wider Treasurer books. Published prices sit on the pricing page: Essentials from £149 a month billed annually, which is £1,788 a year, or £169 monthly; Complete from £229; Group from £349; Province from £2,000 a month plus £35 per lodge, typically £4,500 a month. Those figures do not decide your split, and the typical £1,125 illustration 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 the brief is only a £5 cash book, The Working Tools may be the cheaper correct answer. Confirm that on their live pages, and on the compare page, before anyone spends a year arguing about tools.

That is the end of the pitch. If the lodge has not decided what part of the sub is a gift, buying a platform will not reclaim a pound. If a successor cannot see the split on every paid row, the pack is still a reconstruction.