CRA recently revoked the Christian Economic Assistance Foundation. Here are the revocation letters for Christian Economic Assistance Foundation. Here are some excerpts from the CRA letters: “School Support Program The School Support Program is the main program ·of the Organization. The…
Corporations Canada announced today that it will be offering two new online services for non-profits under the CNCA. It will now be possible for CNCA corporations to file by-laws and financial statements with Corporations Canada through the Online Filing Centre. Business Corporations will…
The CPA Ontario's Not-For-Profit Finance Leadership Day will be held on November 12, 2015 in Toronto. Mark Blumberg will be doing a session entitled: Legal Update: Top Compliance Concerns for Finance and IT Professionals in the Non-profit Sector Mark Blumberg,…
Here is an agenda for the Blumbergs' Charity Law Institute 2015. You can register here.
The Trinity Global Support Foundation was recently revoked. It received some media attention because of the involvement of the former mayor of London, Ontario in the charity. Here are the letters from CRA explaining the detailed reasons for revocation of…
CRA recently revoked the registration of Canadian Friends of Pearl Children. Here are the CRA letters to the charity. According to CRA the organization issued over $167 million in inappropriate official donation receipts. On July 20, 2015 I blogged about the…
Here are the CRA letters from a number of recent Canadian registered charity revocations, annulments and penalties. These letters from CRA cover many different grounds for de-registration or the imposition of penalties. For a number of years we have been…
We are compiling a list of Canadian cases dealing with charities, gifting and related issues. Let us know if you have any other suggestions: 1996-04-01 Briarpatch Inc. v. Canada 1996-07-08 Vancouver Regional FreeNet Assn. v. M.N.R. (C.A.), [1996] 3 F.C.…
As many know the Ontario Not-for-Profit Corporations Act (ONCA) was passed in 2010 and was supposed to be brought in by January 2013. There are ostensibly 59,000 Ontario non-profits, although many may be dormant. The Ontario government announced today “The government is fully…
Mark Blumberg will be team teaching, with Valerie Campbell and Sharilyn Hale, the Humber Fundraising Management Course “Ethical and Legal Issues”. It was previously taught by Ken Wyman so we will have big shoes to fill. Here is more information…
I am looking forward to delivering a 2 hour presentation on the topic of Top Compliance Issues for Registered Charities, their Directors and their Accountants to the CPA Ontario's Practitioners Conference on September 18, 2015. Here is the description of the session: Top Compliance…
A class action lawsuit was commenced on August 18, 2015 in Vancouver against numerous parties involved with a tax shelter scheme related to the Ideas Canada Foundation for the taxation years 2001, 2002 and 2003. Those who invested in…
In July, the B.C. Supreme Court, in the decision of Habitat for Humanity Canada v Hearts and Hands for Homes Society, upheld a claim for specific performance of a clause within an affiliation agreement between two charitable organizations. This decision involved a…
This article discusses Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) and how it impacts Canadian Registered Charities and Non-profit Organizations. Download Article
I was delighted to read a publication “Donor Beware: Investigation into the sufficiency of the Canada Revenue Agency’s warnings about questionable tax shelter schemes”. The special report was prepared in December 2013 by J. Paul Dubé, the Taxpayers’ Ombudsman. The…
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Here is an updated version of the Canadian Charity Legal Checklist. For those who are interested in reviewing legal compliance for their registered charity they may find the checklist helpful. Download Article
In this submission to the Ontario Government, Mark Blumberg argues that Canadian registered charities that are Ontario corporations should not have to undergo essentially redundant regulatory review by the PGT when they make changes to their objects or move over…
It looks like ONCA may not even come into force until mid-2016 and perhaps 2017. It is difficult to know what will happen but the microfiche based record system for Ontario corporations and very outdated technology that Ontario currently uses…
The Blumbergs' Snapshot of the Canadian Charity Sector 2013 is part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project. The database covers about 83,000 of the 86,000 registered charities in Canada that had filed their T3010 and were processed into CRA’s Charity…
This article Canadian Charities Conducting International Activities (2015) discusses the regulatory environment for Canadian charities conducting foreign activities as well as certain practical and ethical issues. Download Article
Since 2012 there has been greater scrutiny of Canadian charities and their political activities. The Canadian government has allocated over $13 million to improve transparency, educate charities and to conduct approximately 60 audits on political activities. CRA recently noted that…
The Department of Finance in late July released for consultation purposes draft legislative proposals that will have an impact on charities. The 2 main changes are an “exemption from capital gains tax for certain dispositions involving private corporation shares…
The CRA has posted an “Advisory on partisan political activities” as a reminder to Canadian registered charities that they must avoid all partisan political activities, although they are allowed to conduct certain political activities related to their objects and within…