We are pleased to announce that we will be holding a full-day event on international philanthropy on April 12, 2019: Blumbergs' International Philanthropy Conference 2019. See below for more details and we hope to see you there. Over 5000 Canadian…
Finance Minister Morneau delivered the 2019 Federal Budget today. Here is our article “2019 Canadian Federal Budget – How will it affect the Canadian charitable sector?“ Finance has already released a Fall Economic Statement that did contain a number of initiatives…
The SNC-Lavalin affair has been in the news for a while. Here is an article on how this SNC-Lavalin scandal relates to the charity sector.
The compliance requirements and restrictions on private foundations in Canada are frequently misunderstood, even by those who run large private foundations. Here is our article Fallacies about private foundations in 2019 that might be helpful in dispelling these myths. If you are…
On Thursday December 13, 2018, Bill C-86 received Royal Assent. Within this Bill, there are several changes to the Income Tax Act related to charities, especially with regards to political activities. The change allows Canadian registered charities to conduct public policy dialogue…
I wrote an article many years ago encouraging informal legal reviews by non-profits and charities. It was called “Canadian nonprofit and charity legal audits: Forget about it!”. Over the past 11 years the world has changed a bit – more…
Here is the new Canadian Charity Legal Checklist. For those who are interested in reviewing legal compliance for their registered charity they may find the checklist helpful.
Here is our article Ontario rules change for compensation of certain directors of non-profit corporations that are charities.
Canadian Charities do a lot of great work. But with over 86,000 of them, there may be a few hundred really bad apples amongst the lot and probably thousands of ineffectual charities, there will be times that you will be…
Here is a copy of our Submission to the Federal Finance Committee dated August 1, 2018 for the 2019 Federal Budget. The submission covers transparency of non-profits and registered charities, as well as a number other recommendations to improve the regulation of registered…
Here is our Blumbergs’ Receipting Kit for Canadian registered charities 2018. If you wish to receive updates on the Receipting Kit you should join our Blumbergs email newsletter to receive regular updates on charity compliance issues affecting Canadian registered charities. There is…
The Special Senate Committee on the Charitable Sector has started having meetings and inviting witnesses. We covered the details of the mandate at Senate appoints Special Committee on the Charitable Sector to look at laws and policies and impact Here…
I am still surprised at the number of Canadian fundraisers that I meet who have not read the CRA's Fundraising Guidance or have read it but don't remember any of the details! Here is the Fundraising Guidance on the CRA…
Here is the standard CRA response letter re Complaint About a Particular Canadian Registered Charity.
CRA has confirmed that the value of receipts issued by a few charities that were part of 'abusive charity gifting tax shelters' was over $7 Billion dollars and resulted in the reassessment by CRA of over 208,000 taxpayer returns. The height…
Here is my recent webinar Top Charity Compliance Issues for Canadian Registered Charity with Mark Blumberg. It was wonderful to have over 3000 people registered for the webinar and thank you CharityVillage for hosting. You can see the presentation, the slide…
Here is our article Common Paragraphs from CRA in the Notification of Registration Regarding Operating a Registered Charity. It provides many of the common warnings or suggestions from CRA that are included in Notifications of Registration from the Charities Directorate.
Here is our article CRA letter on Ineligible Individual and Impact on Charity Application which provides a copy of a standard letter when CRA determines that an ineligible individual may be involved with a charity application.
The case of Markou v. The Queen, 2018 TCC 66 (CanLII) in the Tax Court of Canada dealt with a leveraged donation program called “Donation Program for Medical Science and Technology”- what CRA used to refer to as an “abusive charity…
Here is an article I recently wrote entitled Top Canadian Charity Law Issues for Charity Village. It highlights some of the top compliance issues that a Canadian charity should be concerned with.
There are over 2.5m pages on the Government of Canada's website and only a few thousand deal with registered charities. Here are some tips on finding information on registered charities. However, keep in mind that information and legal advice are…
Understanding legal compliance for registered charities is not easy but Blumbergs is offering exciting new upcoming events in 2018 that will help. Fundamentals of the T3010 and Transparency for Canadian charities On Friday June 1, 2018, Blumbergs’ will be holding a…
We are adding some exciting new functionality with CharityData.ca. First, it is easy to see what gifts a Canadian registered charity gives to another Canadian registered charity on the CRA website. But what if you want to know which charities…
Barry Bussey published an op ed in The Province on the Canada Summer Jobs program and the reluctance of the CRA Minister to release it guidance on religion which has essentially been complete for a number of years. Bussey is…