If you are one of the Registered Journalism Organizations and there are currently only 5 RJOs then you may find this guide T1000-2 – Completing Form T1000-1, Registered Journalism Organization Information Return (CRA) helpful for completing your annual filings. Here…
CRA has information on its website about how Canadian registered charities must act within their legal objects and how those objects must be legally and exclusively charitable. Objects of a non-profit corporation are usually set out in the corporation’s constating…
The Ontario Public Guardian and Trustee have just released the new Not-For-Profit Incorporator’s Handbook that deals with new Ontario Not-For-Profit Corporations Act (ONCA) and charities. The revised Handbook is important as the last Handbook issued a number of years ago…
The Liberals have recently released their Liberal Party Platform-Forward-For-Everyone. The Liberals and Conservatives have always played a culture war game at the expense of the charity sector. Whether it’s political activities of environmental charities, abortion, etc. The cost of…
It has been over 2 years since CRA has been offering CRA My Business Account (MyBA) for charities. There are a large number of transactions that can be completed on the CRA MyBA and it is often quicker to do…
We have created a new online course, Should Our Canadian Business Establish a Corporate Foundation? This course will discuss when it may be advantageous for a Canadian business to launch a corporate foundation. Whether you are a large bank, small…
In the last couple of weeks I have read two separate CRA notes on the importance of maintaining sufficient separation between a registered charity and a non-qualified donee (whether non-profit, foreign charity, for-profit, etc) Here is an excerpt from a…
On April 21, 2021 we had our Blumbergs’ Canadian Charity Law Boot Camp 2021. It is the second Boot Camp that we have conducted online and our tenth Boot Camp in total. Those who missed the course can catch the…
Someone sent me a link to a report from the Centre for Inquiry Canada entitled “The Costs of Religion in Canada“. It is advocating for proselytization to be removed as charitable and groups that are only for the advancement of…
Recently The Narwhal News Society was added as a registered journalism organization (RJO) and therefore along with La Presse Inc. there are now two RJOs. RJOs are qualified donees and therefore can issue official donation receipts and also receive gifts…
Recently a bill was proposed in the Senate –BILL S-222 An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (use of resources), which will eliminate the “own activities” requirement of charities and change the rules for Canadian charities working with non-charities,…
The US largest organization representing non-profits, which has over 25,000 non-profit members, has called for the IRS to eliminate their Form 1023-EZ charity application. They call for “the need to eliminate Form 1023- EZ and restore integrity to the process…
CRA has published a newer version of Form AUT-01 Authorize a Representative for Offline Access in late December 2020. The Form AUT-01 can be used by an individual or business (such as a registered charity) who wishes to authorize a…
The CRA recently released the Report on the Charities Program 2018 to 2020. If you are very interested in the charity sector in Canada you might find it interesting reading. A few quick thoughts: Both the Commissioner and the Director-General…
There are over 600,000 directors of Canadian charities alone. There are many more people in Canada who serve on the boards of non-profits that are not charities. Non-profits and registered charities need to have directors who are capable, caring, connected…
The CBC’s Jason Proctor wrote an article today on “Pandemic tests limits of religious freedom as churches set to fight B.C.’s COVID-19 rules in court: Group of churches claims public health measures unfairly target religious gatherings“. It quotes Mark Blumberg and…
La Presse Inc. is now the first registered journalism organization registered under new category of qualified donee. You can see it listed here. As CRA notes “A registered journalism organization (RJO) is a qualified donee; therefore, it can issue official donation receipts…
Did you know that there are: 31,462 active CNCA corporations (As of September 1st 2020) 3,364 incorporations last year alone: (Fiscal year 2018-2019) At this rate, we will have double the number of Federal corporations in less than 10 years. …
We recently did a course entitled Multiple Corporate Structures for Canadian For-Profits, NPOs, + Charities to Enhance Flexibility and Impact. People who run charities, for-profits and non-profits in Canada and wish to understand the benefits of multiple entities for liability…
The Ontario Ministry of Government Services is launching a new Ontario Business Registry at some point over the next year or two. This Registry will one day contain profiles on any business that is registered (including non-profit corporations), groups incorporated…
We have been blogging about CRA’s draft guidance “Advancement of religion and charitable registration” in 2009, 2017 and 2018. Essentially CRA has been working on the document for a long time and their first draft was put out 11 years…
In a recent CRA document, we obtained that was released through access to information, it provides a good explanation of why CRA cares about charitable purposes and ALSO charitable activities. For most people the point is obvious. If you are…
About 4000 groups apply each year to the Charities Directorate of CRA to receive registered charitable status and about 46% obtain that status. The groups who don’t get charity status are not necessarily in any way bad groups – but…
The CRA has updated their guidance CG-027, Public policy dialogue and development activities by charities. There were only minor changes to the guidance to provide greater clarity. The CRA notes that “This guidance explains how the CRA will administer…