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This Sunday, 23 April, is a special day for England for at least three reasons. It's: 1. the Feast Day of St George, which is England's National Day; 2. said to be the birthday (and death day) of William Shakespeare, England's most famous bard; and 3. the date of the annual Flora London Marathon, a high spot in the athletics calendar and one of the biggest charity fund-raising events of the year. Indeed, up to 35,000 thousand runners are expected to take part in Sunday's event, with almost eight out of ten running the 26.2 mile course to raise money for one of the official London Marathon charities or other good causes. The organisers estimate that a whopping £35 million will be raised for good causes this year. However, before you reach for your purse or wallet to hand over some coins or notes to a friend, relative or acquaintance who is running the Marathon, don't forget about Gift Aid. Thanks to this tax-efficient giving scheme, taxpayers who give money to registered charities can boost the value of their gift by more than a quarter (28%) simply by ticking a box or confirming that they pay tax. Under Gift Aid, a donation of 78p attracts automatic tax relief of 22p, turning it into a pound. So, to work out how much, say, £10 is worth, we multiply it by 100 and divide by 78, which makes £12.82. So, rather than handing over an ordinary £10 note, hand over a "Gift Aid tenner", which is worth an extra £2.82 to the charity. Get this: if all charitable donations were made via Gift Aid, good causes would be better off to the tune of £700 million a year. Blimey! What's more, if you're one of the UK's 3.3 million higher-rate taxpayers (who pay tax at 40%), you can reclaim via your tax return a further 18% of all Gift Aid donations. Continuing with the above example, 18% of £12.82 is £2.31, so you can donate £12.82 to a charity for a net cost to you of just £7.69. Thus, your donation is boosted by two-thirds (67%); wonderful, isn't it? Another way to donate tax-efficiently and with minimal effort is to give through an employee-sponsored scheme known as Give As You Earn, where you make regular donations via your payroll. Also, you could open a CAF Charity Account, which works like a tax-efficient cheque account and comes with a CharityCard and Gift Aid chequebook; learn more about CAF here. Alternatively, as I explained in Win, Win, Win By Giving Shares Away, you can do your bit to help good causes by donated unwanted or lowly valued shares to Sharegift. Sharegift is a charity which specialises in accepting small holdings of shares, particularly those which are not worth selling because the dealing costs would gobble up more than the shares are worth. In addition, Sharegift helps donors with larger gifts of shares to their favourite charities. Sharegift celebrates its tenth anniversary this year and, over the past decade, it has channelled around £7 million to hundreds of different charities, thanks to the support of listed companies, stockbrokers, charities and other organisations across the UK. So, if you have a nuisance holding of shares lying around (perhaps as the result of a dividend paid in shares rather than cash, or a dotcom disaster), consider donating it to Sharegift especially as you get income tax relief on the full value of your gift! One more thing: I'd like to make a special plea on behalf of two big-hearted Fools who plan to run themselves ragged on Sunday for the benefit of those less fortunate than themselves. · MrConspiracie is running his first Marathon to raise funds for the National Autistic Society; you can add to his collection via this link. · MsMuffett, also a Marathon first-timer,hopes to raise £20,000 for the Multiple Sclerosis Resource Centre, which you can donate to here. Finally, if you'd like to hear MsMuffett talking about her Marathon efforts in this week's Motley Fool Money Talk podcast, click here. Good luck to all the brave and foolhardy runners on Sunday -- may your many blisters heal swiftly! More: Check out our Charity Fools discussion board | Get paid to spend with a cashback credit card.
