Canadian Charity Law

Charity law in Canada is a mixture of federal and provincial legislation plus common law and trust law. It is important that registered charities understand their compliance requirements. If you wish to understand your charity law obligations you can retain our law firm by contacting us.

Canadian Charity Law top resources:

CRA launches new video series on charities and political activities

The CRA has prepared a new video series entitled “Charities and their participation in political activities”.  It has 3 videos which are each about 3 minutes long.  There has been  a great deal of interest in political activities and charities…

Blumbergs’ Charity Legal Checklist

Here is an updated version of the Blumbergs Charity Legal Checklist. We hope that you find it a useful tool to help your Canadian registered charity deal with compliance issues.  It is a work in progress so please do send in…

Toronto Star covers CRA criminal investigation of charity tax shelters

In an article entitled “Canada Revenue Agency expands investigations of tax shelters”, Kevin Donovan of the Toronto Star discusses how “As many as 12 charity tax shelter promoters are under criminal investigation for schemes that saw donors contribute millions of…

CRA letter on taxation of gifts from parent to teacher

CRA recently released a letter which discusses the taxation of amounts donated to a private charitable foundation by parents to assist teachers with certain costs, in particular if the parent donations result in a taxable benefit for the teachers.  In…

CRA letter on taxability of payment from US charitable trust

CRA recently released a letter that discusses whether monthly payments from a US charitable trust paid to a former employee are taxable. This situation involved a fund that provided financial assistance to former employees, who by reason of age or…

CRA letter on charitable gifts by secondary will

The CRA recently released a letter which discusses whether a taxpayer's estate was entitled to donation tax credits claimed for a charitable gift made by an individual in her secondary will. The use of a Primary and Secondary Will may…

Some historical CRA letters when revocation of charity status

For a number of years we have been providing the public with copies of CRA revocation letters.  These letters set out the CRA reasons for revocation of charitable status when CRA is alleging cause.  We recently requested from CRA some…

What will happen on October 17, 2014?

As some people know October 17, 2014 is the deadline set for Canada Corporations Act (CCA) non-profit corporations to move over to the new CNCA or face potential dissolution.   It will be 3 years from the date the CNCA  came…

CRA announces Information Webinars available in March

Charities Information Webinar registration for the March 2014 session is now open. The topics are: What is a Related Business? (CPS-019) March 11, 2014 – 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., Eastern standard time How to donate wisely – Information for donors…