Here is our article List of Canadian Registered Charities Revoked as a Result of an Audit Over the Last 30 Years In the article, we discuss how we recently requested and received from CRA a list of all Canadian registered charities…
Here is a recent case in the Federal Court of Appeal with charity Human Concern International v. Canada. (PDF) We had discussed this matter previously. Human Concern International is a Canadian registered charity and CRA had suspended their qualified donee…
The Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson is reviewing CRA audits of registered charities. I have extensive comments at the bottom of this note, if you want to skip some of the background below. There have been concerns expressed by some in the…
Here is the Blumbergs’ Pre-Budget Submission for the 2022 Federal Budget that we filed on February 25, 2022. Our top recommendations are: List of Recommendations Primary Recommendations Recommendation 1: That the Federal government amend Section 241 of the Income Tax…
The demise of the Kids Company charity in the UK was a big event. It was a large charity that had close connections with government that very quickly imploded. The Charity Commission notes: An official report has found that…
Cryptocurrency has been in the news now for many years. While cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum etc. have received a lot of attention, in my anecdotal experience, very little money has been provided to Canadian charities through cryptocurrency. We…
There are approximately 6,300 private foundations in Canada. Private foundations have been growing at a higher rate than any other type of Canadian registered charity. They have assets of around $100 Billion. Although there are some differences between a private…
The National Post recently had an article by Christopher Nardi “Charity sector worth $300B per year, but CRA audits have dropped four-fold since 2010“. It discusses the dramatic decline in CRA audits previously discussed on our blog at Dramatic changes…
Here are the CRA letters from a number of recent Canadian registered charity revocations. These letters from CRA cover many different grounds for de-registration. For a number of years, we have been providing the public with copies of CRA revocation…
The League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith and B’nai Brith Foundation District No. 22 were two Canadian registered charities that were revoked as a result of audit by CRA. I requested copies of the documents that are publicly available…
CRA recently provided a redacted letter on “Whether an individual may claim a non-refundable tax credit on their final return for a gift by will, to a U.S. organization.” The letter has a good summary of how donations by Canadian…
I recently read on a blog with some statistics relating to the number of audits that the Charities Directorate of CRA was conducting each year. Frankly, I could not believe the numbers so I wrote to CRA to ask them…
CRA has the ability to provide penalties to Canadian registered charities and suspend the receipting privileges and qualified donee status of a registered charity. This is in addition to other tools such as revoking the charitable status of a charity. …
In the case of Piett v Global Learning Group Inc., 2021 SKQB 232 the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench decided not to certify a class action on GLGI as there is already one in Ontario. Here is good coverage of the case…
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 PGT recently published a page “Charities: making a complaint” explaining how to make a complaint about a charity. We have previously discussed the topic of complaining about charities here. Here is the full text of the PGT…
Here are the CRA letters from a number of recent Canadian registered charity revocations. These letters from CRA cover many different grounds for de-registration. For a number of years, we have been providing the public with copies of CRA revocation…
There is often confusion in the charity sector about donations of marketable securities vs. donations of private company shares in Canada. There is a huge difference in complexity between the two different transactions, although many charity gift acceptance policies that…
Here is Blumbergs’ Written Submission to the Department of Finance about the disbursement quota. As we note in the submission, we are firmly in favour of an increase in the disbursement quota. We so suggest possible changes in our submission…
In this article “Should the disbursement quota for registered charities in Canada change or be left alone?”, Mark Blumberg and Jessie Lang discuss the disbursement quota (DQ) and the Department of Finance’s consultation on whether the Income Tax Act should be…
At a time when charities need funds and private foundations alone are sitting on $95 billion dollars, the Advisory Committee to the Charitable Sector (ACCS) has prepared a submission to Finance Canada stating that the disbursement quota (DQ) issue is…
The Conservatives have put forward some proposals in their platform that are unclear and could have a significant negative effect on the charity sector, especially larger charities such as universities, hospitals, international development and environmental organizations. Here are the proposals…
Many Canadian registered charities have March 31 year ends. Mostly these are aligned with government funders who have a similar year-end. These March 31 registered charities need to ensure that they can accurately file their T3010 by September 30.…
With respect to a recent bill passed by the Senate, but not the House of Commons, relating to structured arrangements/direction and control we have prepared the following blog posts with our concerns about the bill and its ultimate impact. …