In an article entitled Charities will soon have a higher spending quota to keep charitable status, Chris Nardi of the National Post discussed the Federal budget’s change in the disbursement quota. For our coverage, see Canadian Federal Budget 2022 and…
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tabled a budget today at 4:00 PM. Here is our article 2022 Canadian Federal Budget and its impact on the Canadian charitable sector. The budget dealt with many big issues surrounding Canada’s COVID-19 recovery and housing,…
Non-profits and charities that fundraise in Alberta and are well-informed of their obligations probably received a bit of a surprise when they applied for registration under the Alberta Charitable Fundraising Act this year. The previously brief, relatively painless registration process…
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,…
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 our Blumbergs Snapshot of the Canadian Charity Sector 2018 – Fundraising which shows fundraising revenues and costs over a number of years. Some of the highlights of the Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Canadian Charity Sector 2018 –…
I have not been keeping up with my reading. Just took a look at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics and their report from June 2021 on Questions of Conflict of Interest and Lobbying in Relation…
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…
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…
In a press release, the CRA reminds groups that COVID subsidies need to be included in your reporting. Specifically for NPOs and charities, they note: Tax-exempt employers and entities If you are a tax-exempt employer or entity (such as a…
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…
The Federal Department of Finance Pre-budget Consultations 2022 has launched. Although it is not mentioned on the announcement (reproduced below) the period of the consultation is January 31 to February 25, 2022. With the occupation in Ottawa and the Russian…
For those who don’t know there is a concept called tax expenditures. It is an estimate of the cost to a government of certain tax concessions. How much does it cost the Federal government to give a tax break such…
I have been contacted by a small number of charities and individuals who are dealing with the issue of a board member donating to the freedom convoy and how to deal with it. This is a situation where an individual…
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…
In March 2021, the Federal Government released their official response to the Report of the Special Committee on the Charitable Sector: “Catalyst for Change: A Roadmap to a Stronger Charitable Sector.” The full response can be found in PDF version…
There have been many people wondering how COVID has affected the Canadian charity sector. On March 24, 2021, we released our first report which looked at 1676 registered charities. We released our second report on June 9, 2021, with 11,821 registered…
The US charity leader and commentator, Vu Le, recently wrote another thought-provoking article entitled “Reports of the nonprofit sector’s death are greatly exaggerated“. In it, he makes many cogent arguments as to why the “social enterprise or B corps or…
Recently Ontario passed Bill 9, Non-Profit Sector Appreciation Week Act, 2021. Now in Ontario, the third week in February is non-profit appreciation week. On the plus side, this could be a focal point for organizing some events that show appreciation…
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…