A common problem – a charity loses its registered charity status for failure to file the T3010 and does not even know

If you think that you are a registered charity, you might want to double-check on the CRA’s Charities Listing and also check the “Details Page” to ensure that your address is still correct.

Here is an article by Bethany Lindsay of the Investigative Journalism Foundation:

They found out their charitable status was revoked via an IJF article. Now they’re scrambling to re-apply

Essentially a search and rescue charity had lost its charitable status because the address CRA had for the charity was not up-to-date (ie. the charity had not provided CRA with an updated address) and the warnings that the charity was sent about not filing their T3010 were never received by the charity and subsequently CRA revoked their charitable status for failure to file.

In this case, it was a journalist asking the charity about its loss of status that resulted in the charity becoming aware of the problem.  Losing your status for failure to file is not only problematic from a fundraising point of view, but also the time, effort, and costs needed to reapply.

The IJF quotes the charity:

“To regain our charitable status, we are in the process of supplying the CRA with all necessary documents for reapplication, including our 2023 report,” the statement said.

“We also were not aware of losing our status until reading the article and we have now learned that our mailing address was wrong in our CRA account which is why we were unaware. We have now modernized our processes to go completely digital to avoid this ever happening again.”

What can we learn?

1. Check CRA Charities Listing now that you are a “registered charity” and not revoked
2. Check that the mailing address that CRA has for your charity is correct.  It is on the details page.
3. Make sure that with smaller charities, every board member diarizes the date that the T3010 must be filed, so there is less likelihood that one board member/officer leaving will result in a non-filing.
4. It is a good practice, because of the importance of the T3010, for the board to be provided with a copy of the T3010 – it provides the board an opportunity to see the draft content and to know that it is being worked on and may even provide comments.  In our experience with some organizations, the quality of documents and the effort put into them increases when they are provided to the board.
5. Your charity should be on the CRA MyBA electronic system, and you should file the T3010 online – it reduces CRA effort and mistakes and also provides a confirmation of receipt.
6. If you don’t file online, which is very unfortunate, then you should check regularly the Charities Listing to see when the T3010 appears and whether it has been inputted correctly.  This is important, but it’s also a giant waste of time if you followed point 5 above.
7. You might want to have an experienced charity lawyer review your T3010 form before filing, as this could lead to suggestions for improvements and help the charity identify potential red flags for CRA.