It is nice to see the CRA publish its Report on the Charities Program 2023 to 2024 on March 20, 2025. This is quite quick, as CRA has been far behind in providing these reports. The 2022/23 report was only…
The National Post had a recent article on the “Canadian Jewish charity stripped of status fights CRA over potential multi-million dollar tax bill“. In this article, journalist Ari Blaff discusses an unusual move by the CRA in the Federal Court…
Prime Minister Carney is expected to announce a Federal election that will be held on April 28, 2025. It is important that Canadian non-profits and registered charities are aware of what is going on politically in Canada and also engage…
One of most important benefits of being a registered charity is the ability to receive gifts and to issue official donation receipts. CRA is having a webinar on the topic, and it is probably worth attending. If you want a…
About 10,000 CNCA corporations that have not filed their annual returns in the last 3 years will be dissolved. Here are below some further approximately 235 names of corporations that have been dissolved. We have discussed this topic in multiple…
Earlier this week, the National Post published an article, entitled “Diaspora groups call on Canada to activate foreign agent registry ahead of federal election.” The article outlined diaspora groups’ displeasure with the indeterminate timeline for rolling out the foreign influence…
We recently wrote to the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement to ask them why for example articles of amendments with no problems were taking about 3 months to be returned after they were filed. The Ministry…
The Toronto Star recently had an article, “Law Society of Ontario hires retired senior judge to investigate CEO’s new, near-$1-million contract,” and it is well worth reading. This will be a learning moment for the LSO as well as other…
Today, CBC News had an article, “In appeal to Muslims, Freeland pledges to scrap controversial CRA division“. Freeland is promising that if she becomes Prime Minister she will scrap the Research and Analysis Division (RAD) of the Charities Directorate. Meanwhile,…
Canada announced today the addition of 7 criminal organizations to its list of designated terrorist organizations. Canadian charities want to take even greater precautions not to directly or indirectly support any of these organizations. Although this was a concession to…
I recently saw this article, “Region of Peel files $4M lawsuit alleging a former employee defrauded program meant to prevent homelessness & poverty“. This article emphasizes the importance of having effective internal controls. Here are some really good resources…
The disbursement quota (DQ) is the minimum amount a registered charity is required to spend each year on its own charitable activities, on gifts to qualified donees (for example, other registered charities) or on grants to grantees. The disbursement quota…
Register Here. Trump’s recent announcement of freezes of US foreign aid and today’s freezing of Federal funding for programs in the US is very ominous, to say the least. On November 9, 2024, I wrote an article entitled Will the…
CRA has given a webinar on “Rules for charities making grants to grantees (non-qualified donees)”. Here is the slide deck from CRA Rules for charities making grants to grantees (non-qualified donees).
Canadian charities are not allowed to be involved with supporting a foreign military. Recently, the Charity Commission of England and Wales issued a warning to an English charity on this point. We have blogged previously about the importance of Canadian…
The Government of Canada released today draft legislation to extend the 2024 charitable donations deadline to February 28, 2025. The government will introduce the draft legislation in Parliament at some point but at least the draft is available. Finance will…
Yesterday Caitlin Lee and Mark Blumberg delivered a presentation Finance donation extension proposal and its impact on Canadian charities – what do we know – for participants. Here is the slide deck. Looking forward to hearing further information from CRA…
An article appeared in the Globe and Mail today by Rudy Mezzetta entitled “Prorogued Parliament complicates extension to charitable donation deadline”. In the article, it notes: The federal government’s proposal to extend the charitable donation deadline to Feb. 28…
We have seen many issues raised about the extension of 2024 charitable donations to February 28, 2025. Today, Trudeau announced his resignation and the proroguing of Parliament until March 24, 2025. For simplicity, we will call January 2025 and February…
There are lots of governmental press releases and stories about religious groups engaged in very problematic behaviours. Yes, religious groups do a lot of good, but ignoring the bad actors undercuts the good of all religious groups. I recently noticed…
As we recently noted, most people search the CRA’s Charities Listing and see the name of the registered charity. That is actually the “Account Name” that is appearing on the Charities Listing. There is also a “Legal Name” that CRA…
Happy New Year to everyone. It will be interesting to see how 2025 turns out. Unfortunately, it appears we’re entering into a period of tremendous uncertainty. This is not only because of the incoming US administration/tariffs but also political uncertainty…
We have seen many issues raised about the extension of 2024 donations to February 28, 2025. For simplicity, we will call January 2025 and February 2025 the “extension period”. We have written about our concerns with this proposal in our…
A number of groups, including Imagine Canada, have called for an extension of the normal December 31 deadline for charitable donations because of the postal strike. I am not convinced that this proposal to extend the deadline past Dec…