HMRC allocates £1.8 million a year for grants to charities who help excluded taxpayers

Eligible organisations need to bid for the funding, worth £1.8 million a year from 2024 until 2027, up from the current annual grant of £1.66 million, through HMRC’s voluntary and community sector grant funding programme.

Bids can be submitted between 24 July and 21 August 2023, with successful organisations being announced in October, ready for the new funding to start from 1 April 2024.

This is the 12th round of funding HMRC is awarding as ‘part of its commitment to help everyone get their tax right’. The programme builds on more than a decade of partnership funding, worth in excess of £20 million.

The programme has been ongoing for over a decade and previous beneficiaries included Citizens Advice Bureaus, TaxAid, Tax Help for Older People and Gingerbread.

Successful organisations will receive funding to provide free advice and support to customers who:

• may face barriers in understanding their tax obligations and claiming their entitlements
• are digitally excluded from accessing HMRC services
• have any other difficulty in interacting directly with HMRC

Are you eligible?

To be eligible for this grant funding from HMRC, an organisation must be a registered charity, voluntary and community sector organisation, social enterprise, mutual or a co-operative.

Bids should include two or more of the following activities:

1. Help people comply with their tax affairs

• Providing direct advice and support for HMRC’s customers who need extra help and cannot afford to pay for it.
• Building trust and confidence so that customers can deal with HMRC directly in the future.  This should cover the full spectrum of HMRC’s work from, for example, notifying us of sources of income or changes of circumstance.
• Supporting customers with tax liabilities and entitlements, assisting customers where we are seeking further information or evidence.
• Support with HMRC Debt and associated hardship.

2. Support customers with complex needs

• Providing specialist knowledge and advice on complex tax enquiries including referrals from HMRC’s Extra Support teams, other government departments or other VCS organisations.
• This may also include customers who need third party representation, accessible communication formats and translation, physical and logistical adjustments.

3. Digital assistance

Support customers who need digital assistance to build their confidence and capability to use HMRC online services for themselves by:

• increasing customer confidence and trust when using digital services
• providing digital inclusion support alongside tax advice
• keeping customers in digital channels when they experience difficulties

RNIB’s Sight Loss Advice Service is one of 12 organisations previously awarded under the grant programme. Director David Newbold said, “RNIB is extremely grateful to HMRC for its generous support, ensuring blind and partially sighted people can access the advice, information and practical help they need to deal with their tax affairs and HMRC.”