I recently was reviewing some T3010 data from CRA and was confused because it looked like the charity sector had dramatically increased its expenditures in 2023 by about $222 billion to be precise! I thought for a second that maybe there is a big party out there and no one had invited me to it. This could be quite plausible. So I looked further and it appears that one charity that typically has total expenditures of about $3m per year had listed total compensation of $222,453,024,621.
Anyway, clearly someone has made a mistake – either the charity in inputting the information into the T3010 or CRA in keyboarding the data. Either way, in my view, charities should not only file the T3010 but also check that the information is correct. Furthermore, charities should file online, and it reduces the likelihood of the CRA making keyboarding mistakes. CRA, on the other hand, should also do some analysis to check when there appear to be very abnormal numbers. I have seen some very incorrect numbers, but never one this big. I guess with all the charity filings and CRA keying in information, it should not be surprising that there will be mistakes.
By the way, I wrote to the charity to alert them to the mistake, and it will be interesting to see if someone deals with it.