Form

How to complete ChV1 HMRC charities variations form

Updated 7 August 2023

1. Introduction

This guide will help you complete the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) charities variations form (ChV1). You may find it easier to print this guide so that you can refer to it as you complete the form ChV1.

The ChV1 form can only be used by UK charities, Community Amateur Sports Clubs (CASCs) and other organisations entitled to UK charity tax reliefs (all referred to as ‘charities’ on the form).

Completing the form makes sure HMRC holds the right details for your organisation. This helps when processing repayment claims, paying tax back to you, and dealing with other correspondence.

HMRC doesn’t hold records of responsible persons prior to April 2010. If your organisation was recognised by HMRC charities (and received a HMRC Charities reference number) before April 2010 you may not have been asked for contact details for your authorised officials or responsible persons before. Use form ChV1 to tell HMRC who holds these roles for your charity.

2. When to use this form

Use the ChV1 to tell HMRC about:

• the authorised official’s details (someone in your organisation authorised to deal with your tax affairs)
• the responsible persons’ details (someone with legal responsibility for running your organisation)
• authorised officials or responsible persons who were acting for the Charity prior to April 2010 and are currently acting for the Charity
• your charity’s bank details- (you need make sure that your bank can accept Bacs (Bankers Automated Clearing System) payments.

Or if there is any change to:

• the contact details for your organisation
• the authorised official’s details
• the responsible persons’ details
• authorised officials, responsible persons and nominees who have ceased to act
• your nominees’ details, including bank or building society account changes
• your bank or building society account details

Giving new information

You can also use the form to tell HMRC about other changes, for example minor changes to your governing document eg change of name or change to any financial and/or administrative provisions.

Any major changes including a change of status eg change from Trust to Charitable Incorporated Company. This will require a new application as the organisation is considered a new entity for tax purposes. Please read Get recognition from HMRC for your charity for more information.

3. Before you start

Check if you need to tell your regulator about the changes first

A regulator is a body that regulates or sets the rules for your type of organisation, and checks that your organisation is following them. For some changes, like a change in the name of your organisation, you need to get consent from your regulator before you tell HMRC that your details have changed. For example, if your organisation is based in England, and wants to change its name, you might need to get consent from the Charity Commission for England and Wales first.

Authorised officials and responsible persons - read the guidance and tell HMRC about them

The authorised official is the person within your organisation who’s authorised to deal with HMRC about your organisation’s tax affairs and, where necessary, submit tax returns. A responsible person will be a person with legal responsibility for running your organisation, for example, trustees or directors.

Make sure all authorised officials and responsible persons in your organisation have read the Charities: fit and proper persons test guidance before completing this form. This guidance explains why charities need to make sure that their managers are suitable to hold such positions and, in particular, that they haven’t been involved in tax fraud or disqualified from being a charity trustee. It also includes a model declaration that charities can ask their managers to sign. The trustees, directors or other members of the management committee of your organisation are wholly responsible for the accuracy and validity of any claim made on their behalf by a nominee. You should carefully consider the suitability of each person you authorise to act on behalf of your organisation.

4. Notes to help you complete the form

Form ChV1 is designed to be downloaded, saved on your computer and filled in on screen. This guide gives help with some of the sections on the form.

Complete the form in English. If any documents you send supporting the form, such as minutes of meetings, are not in English please provide a translation of those documents.

You need to complete every relevant part of the form. If the form isn’t complete or correct, HMRC might ask you to send in a new form. At the end of the form there’s a checklist. Tick the sections of the form you’ve completed. For example if you’ve used the form to tell HMRC about a change to your charity’s bank details or that people who hold certain roles within the charity have changed. When you print the form, only those sections where you’ve ticked the box and provided information will print out. This is normal. In addition, some information you didn’t enter on the form will appear on the printed version. Again this is normal and helps HMRC process the form more quickly.

5. Guidance by section headings

About your organisation - current information held by HMRC

Use this section to enter the current details for your organisation before any changes were made. The boxes in this section must be completed to show the details already held by HMRC. For example, if you say later in the form that the charity has changed its name please put the old name in box 1 as that’s the name that HMRC will have on record.

Box 2 asks for your HMRC Charities reference number. This is the reference your organisation was given when it registered for UK charity tax reliefs with HMRC. It usually starts with one or two letters followed by some numbers, such as AB12345. Don’t enter your Charity Commission number if you are registered with them - this number doesn’t have any letters at the beginning.

The address you must enter in box 5 is the premises or office address for your charity, if you have one. If your charity is a company, you must give the registered office address here. If your charity does not have offices or premises please enter a contact address and repeat this information in box 6.

Contact details

Always complete this section to show the up to date contact details for your charity or CASC, even if they haven’t changed. Enter the address, phone number and email you want HMRC to use. This is how HMRC will contact the authorised official with any questions, and the address to which any payment and Government Gateway notifications will be sent.

Please note however that if your Organisation has a Business and a Correspondence address, any Government Gateway notifications will be sent to the business address. If there are posting problems at the business address eg no letter box, you may wish to consider changing the business address to the correspondence address.

You must fill in boxes 6 and 7 before you print off this form.

About the changes

Use this section to tell HMRC about the information you want to change or about new information. All other boxes can be left blank.

Changes to the charity

If the name of the Charity has changed you must enclose copies of supporting documents that give authority for these changes to be made, with the form. For example, minutes of the trustee meeting where the decision was taken to change the name of the organisation, or copies of an amended governing document.

If your official address or registered office for your charity has changed, give the new address here. If your charity doesn’t have offices or any premises but the contact address has changed please enter your new contact address here, which will be the same as the address shown in box 6.

Changes to authorised official’s details

Use this section to tell HMRC about your authorised official.

An authorised official is the person within your organisation who is authorised to deal with HMRC about your organisation’s tax affairs and, where necessary, submit tax returns. This is the only person within your organisation who is authorised to submit Gift Aid repayment claims. HMRC will contact this person if they have any questions about your organisation.

All new authorised officials and responsible people must be fit and proper persons in order for the organisation to be eligible for charity tax reliefs. Before completing this form, they should read the Charities: fit and proper persons test guidance.

There is no requirement to use this model declaration but, if HMRC asks you, you must be able to show that you have carried out suitable checks to demonstrate the person is fit and proper.

If a person named as an authorised official has a National Insurance number, you must enter this on the form. If this person doesn’t have a National Insurance number, you must send documents with the form to verify the identity of the individual. One of these must be a copy of the page of a passport with a photograph of the person, or other similar photo identification, and the other must be a document to verify that person’s address such as a utility bill.

If you need to enter the details of another authorised official, use the ‘add another authorised official change’ button to add their details. Each of the additional named people should sign this section of the form only.

The new official must provide a signature in box 20.

Changes to responsible person’s details

Use this section to tell HMRC if the details of a responsible person have changed or if you need to tell HMRC who the responsible persons are for the first time.

A responsible person will be a person with legal responsibility for running your organisation and includes:

• trustees
• directors (where your organisation is a company)
• other people in controlling positions in your organisation like the treasurer, company secretary, management committee members and financial controller

HMRC needs to know who the responsible persons are for your charity. You need to nominate a minimum of two responsible persons. Together with the authorised official, they’ll be the only people allowed by HMRC to change details on your organisation’s tax records.

If a person named in this section has a National Insurance number, you must enter this on the form. If this person doesn’t have a National Insurance number, you must send documents with the form to verify the identity of the individual. One of these must be a copy of the page of a passport with a photograph of the person, or other similar photo identification, and the other must be a document to verify that person’s address such as a utility bill.

If you need to enter the details of another responsible person, use the ‘add another responsible person change’ button to add their details. Each of the additional named people should sign this section of the form only. Before they do this, they should read the Charities: fit and proper persons test guidance.

The new responsible official must provide a signature in box 29.

If the charity is managed by a corporate trustee, for example a trust company or a trust corporation, you should enter the name of the corporate trustee showing the position as ‘corporate trustee.’ Enter the address of the corporate trustee in the box headed ‘private or hone address.’ Do not complete the date of birth or national insurance number boxes. There is no need to send identity documents for a corporate trustee.

New bank or building society details for your charity

Use this section to provide details of the organisation’s bank account into which you want HMRC to pay Gift Aid repayments and any other tax repayments. You need to complete this section if the bank account details have changed or if HMRC has not been provided with the details in the past.

HMRC will make repayments to your organisation into this bank account using the Bacs system, so you need to make sure your bank can accept these payments. If you aren’t sure whether or not your bank can accept Bacs payments please check first. When entering the date the account was opened, enter an approximate date if the account has been in existence for a long time and you’re not sure when it was opened.

Nominee and collection agency details

Use this section to tell HMRC if your charity’s nominees or collection agency details change. A nominee is an individual or organisation outside your charity that you authorise to submit Gift Aid (or other tax repayment) claims on your behalf.

If you’ve changed your nominee or collection agency you should put the name of the new organisation or individual in box 36. If you name an organisation, you should enter the name of an individual in that organisation in box 37. A nominee organisation or collection agency needs to provide the names of people within the organisation who are authorised to deal with HMRC and these people should sign in box 45.

If a person named in this section has a National Insurance number, you must enter this on the form. If this person doesn’t have a National Insurance number, you must send documents with the form to verify the identity of the individual. One of these must be a copy of the page of a passport with a photograph of the person, or other similar photo identification, and the other must be a document to verify that person’s address such as a utility bill.

A collection agency is a nominee that submits large numbers of Gift Aid repayment claims and that has been recognised by HMRC as a collection agency. If there’s a change to the collection agency you need to show the details of this on the form in the same way as for a nominee except that you don’t need to give bank account details as these are already known to HMRC. You should enter the collection agency reference in box 38 and you can then leave boxes 47 to 53 blank. The collection agency will let you have their C.A.C. reference number if HMRC has given them one.

If you want HMRC to exchange other information with your nominee about your organisation’s tax affairs, so that your nominee is acting as an agent, you’ll need to provide additional authority for this by completing Form Authorising your agent (64-8) and submitting it to HMRC. Without it, HMRC can’t discuss other tax issues with your nominee.

Authorised officials, responsible persons and nominees who have ceased to act

Use this section to tell HMRC about authorised officials, responsible persons and nominees who have stopped acting for your organisation. Click the ‘+’ button to add another row if you need to enter details for more than one person or organisation.

Any other changes

Use this section to give details of any other changes you want to tell HMRC about. This could be changes to managers not already mentioned on the form, minor changes to your governing document or a change of accounting period.

If the charity changes status e.g. from being a trust to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation you must complete a new application, as the organisation is considered a new entity for tax purposes. Please read Get recognition from HMRC for your charity for more information.

Use this space to tell us about new officials who have signed the declaration but are not known to HMRC. (See declaration guidance for more information)

Declaration

The declaration must be signed by two people from your organisation with the role of authorised official or responsible person who were in post before the changes were made.

The declaration shouldn’t be signed by any new official you’ve told HMRC about in boxes 9 to 29 unless all of the officials previously known to HMRC have changed. If this occurs please arrange for two new officials to sign the form and use Box 55 to explain the reason.

The declaration must not be signed by a nominee, collection agency or agent.

When you’ve completed this form

When you’ve completed the form you need to tick the boxes in the table to show which sections of the form you’ve completed. When you print the form, only those sections where you’ve ticked the box will print out. This is normal. Also, some information you didn’t enter on the form will appear on the printed version. Again this is normal. The information helps HMRC process the form more quickly.

Where to send your completed form

When you’ve completed the form, check it carefully as any missing information may mean HMRC will have to ask you to submit a new form. When you’ve finished completing the form, print it, and arrange for two people from your organisation with the role of authorised official or responsible person to sign and date it.

The completed form should be sent to:

HM Revenue and Customs
Charities, Savings and International 2
BX9 1BU

Please keep a copy of this form for your records.

Do not submit any repayment claims until you have received confirmation that the changes submitted on this form have been made.

Failure to do so may result in claims being paid to an incorrect bank account, or a claim being rejected.