I recently took a look at the CRA Charities Listing for groups that were revoked as a result of audit and there were 14 groups listed as revoked as a result of audit: Showing 1 to 14 of 14…
So the rumour mill says that the Liberals may call a Federal election in August. Hopefully, we will not have the misinformation about charities and elections as we saw in 2019. Essentially, if you are a registered charity there are…
A few weeks ago a Canadian registered charity called the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) was involved in a scandal when it was discovered that its president had hired a private investigator to surveil the Chief-Justice of Manitoba who…
In an article in the National Post entitled “WE in hot water again — this time with the CRA over donation receipts: WE’s legal fees will be far in excess of the $90,000 in dispute. Sometimes you just can’t win for…
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…
CRA recently sent out an email entitled “Warning: Watch out for tax shelter gifting schemes“. I am not sure if this is just regular communication or there is an upswing in these. You would think that they would be warning…
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…
A lot has changed in 2 years when the last Federal budget was delivered. Today, Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland introduced a Federal Budget and you can see our initial comments at “2021 Canadian Federal Budget and its impact on…
In a recent Federal Court of Appeal case called Kueviakoe v. Canada, the court decided that an official donation receipt lacking certain basic or correct information can be invalidated. This is consistent with past court decisions. The court noted various…
Recently CRA updated their post on charitable activities to highlight the ability of charities to carrying out public policy dialogue and development activities (PPDDA) but also to remember that with an upcoming election in the future that charities may also…
Here is an announcement from CRA relating to new webinars dealing with gifting and receipting on March 30 and March 31, 2021. . Charities information webinars Dear Stakeholder, I am pleased to announce the return of the charities…
After my very disappointing first read of the “Report #1 of the Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector” which was just released last Friday here are some further thoughts. This is the first report. The Advisory Committee on the…
2020 was a turbulent year. The CRA has updated their document P113 – Gifts and Income Tax for 2020. The P113 is a helpful guide to the tax consequences of donations to registered charities and qualified donees. The big change…
In 2020 CRA gave an extension to many charities to deal with the unexpected events around COVID. In 2021, unless the situation changes drastically, there will be no extensions. The normal rules apply for filing of the T3010 for registered…
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…
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…
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…
An interesting report from the OECD on charities in many different countries recently was published. It was given a really exciting title namely “Taxation and Philanthropy” so you might have missed it at the checkout at your local grocery store. …
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…
We recently received a copy of the CRA Ministerial Welcome Package which is dated November 2019. There are a number of references to charities including on pages 39, 64, 65, 73, 87-88, 95 and 120. There is no reference in the…
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…
On Friday, December 11, 2020 I gave testimony to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics (ETHI) on the CSSG and We Charity scandal. Here is the video of the testimony. The part dealing with procurements and…