Here is a CRA presentation entitled Charities Directorate, LPRAB Complex Audit Project Action Plan. The presentation discusses the Charities Directorate and audits of complex transactions involving charities.
This CRA Presentation on Registered Charities Compliance discusses CRA’s focus on abusive tax shelters and other inappropriate uses of registered charities and how CRA is going to focus on inappropriate use of foundations while working with other parts of CRA…
Here is a letter from Francois Boileau, Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson, at the Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson, on the Systemic Examination into concerns expressed by certain Muslim-led charities around audits by the Charities Directorate and more specifically, the Research and Analysis…
Here is a heavily redacted look at the Charities Directorate Compliance Division Dashboard.
In the Annual Resource Alignment Process One-Pager – Charities Directorate, CRA’s Charities Directorate is asking for additional funds to do High Net Worth Charity Audits. “This proposal is for an increase in resources for the high net worth audits initiative…
I recently received a copy of an interesting document from CRA dealing with registered charity audit stats that was released as a result of an access to information request. In this document, the CRA identifies the audit outcomes. It is…
The New York Times recently published an article “76 Fake Charities Shared a Mailbox. The I.R.S. Approved Them All.” It is an important article in that it illustrates some of the tremendous problems in the US charity system. It is…
Trudeau is noticing abuse at Hockey Canada all of sudden and he wants to see change. Trudeau said, “We need to see Hockey Canada demonstrating a level of transparency, accountability (and) understanding of the situation they’re faced with, … There…
The Charities Directorate of CRA recently released an Access to Information document which discusses audits of registered charities. Here is our article CRA audit statistics released through freedom of information in 2022.
I found this document entitled NPO Sector Review that had been obtained through access to information. It is from 2015 and deals with CRA‘s review of the NPO sector which includes both nonprofit organizations and registered charities. The document provides…
The Cullen Commission of Inquiry into Money Laundering in British Columbia released its final report. Although the report focuses on BC, money laundering is an international problem that affects those in all of Canada. The lengthy report will be of…
CRA discusses Federal/Provincial/Territorial Network of Charity Regulators in a new page. I’m very pleased that this page has been set up and it provides greater transparency on the regulation of charities in Canada. The Network has been around since 2004,…
We have made a number of updates to the CharityData.ca website. We have reimported the 2019 and 2020 data to ensure that it uses the latest data from CRA. We have modified the base year for searches from 2019 to…
The Logic recently had an article entitled “Liberals plan to order increase in charity foundations’ spending, following The Logic’s investigation“. The article notes: The commitment comes after an investigation by The Logic found that seven percent of charities, and…
I am very grateful that Mary Barroll, President of CharityVillage, spent over an hour with me discussing the charity sector in Canada including business activities and social enterprise as well as regulator and public policy issues. For those interested in…
The CRA recently published their annual “Report on the Charities Program 2020 to 2021″. (PDF) Here are some comments: The Minister of National Revenue states: “To continue building and maintaining public trust in the charities regulator and the charitable sector,…
Let’s start with the most obvious. Canadian individuals and corporations can donate to numerous Canadian registered charities that are dealing with the situation in Ukraine and neighbouring countries. Here are examples of some of the groups: Canadian Red Cross Society…
Here are some suggestions for donating to a Canadian charity in a disaster such as we are seeing in Ukraine. You might also find our article Helping Ukraine deal with the humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian invasion helpful. Select…
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…
CRA has recently updated guidance “P113 – Gifts and Income Tax 2021” with information on the donations and tax incentives. CRA updates the guidance every year although the changes are usually not that substantial. In this case, there were no…
The CharityData.ca website is the preeminent freely available transparency tool for information on Canadian registered charities. It has been available since August of 2016 and we have been making intermittent improvements to CharityData.ca ever since it was created. If you…
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…
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…