Here is a press release from the CRA entitled “The Canada Revenue Agency revokes the registration of Glooscap Heritage Society as a charity ” Despite what some have been suggesting these “abusive charity gifting tax schemes” are not dead. According…
Sarah Boesveld of the National Post on Oct 6, 2012 wrote an article “Pray away the gay’: Conversion therapy groups face heat over charity status” which discusses how California has banned “conversion therapy” out of “concerns of LGBT groups who…
The Vancouver Sun columnist David Baines has written an article entitled “Controversy swirls over library’s tax receipt issuance”. In that article he is questioning a couple of receipts issued by the RIchmond Public Library that were cumulatively for around $1.2…
We know that there are about 19,000 Federal corporations under the Canada Corporations Act that will need to continue under the new CNCA by October 17, 2014. We are approaching one year since the CNCA was brought in. Non-profits only…
I sometimes laugh when I see some of the things that lawyers think are worthy of comment. For example really esoteric cases. Then almost two weeks ago there was an important decision in the extremely backlogged Tax Court of Canada…
In this article we discuss “Should Ontario non-profits or charities be worrying about the Ontario Not-for-Profit Corporations Act (ONCA)?” The short answer is: probably not. The Ontario Not-for-Profit Corporations Act (ONCA) will affect over 50,000 Ontario Corporation Act (OCA) non-profit…
The ONCA received Royal Assent on October 25, 2010. It has not yet come into force. The Ontario Government was targeting implementation of the ONCA for January 1, 2013. Today the Ontario Government announced that their target date for implementation…
The pre-budget submissions to the Finance Committee have been released. A number of the submissions deal with charity issues. Here is a copy of the submission from Blumberg Segal LLP: Here is a list of all the submissions: http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=5709773&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=41&Ses=1…
Charity Village recently conducted an interview with Cathy Hawara who is the Director General of the Charities Directorate of CRA. The interview with Cathy Hawara by Andy Levy-Ajzenkopf at Charity Village was published on September 24, 2012 and is located…
Corporations Canada of Industry has advised that CNCA and certain other federal corporations may use either a residential address or another address for the address for service of directors of the corporation. This will allow directors to use a address,…
Here is an article in the Globe and Mail on the revocation of Charity Intelligence for failure to file their T3010 on time entitled “” About 600 charities fail to file their T3010 every year and lose their status…
Here is a recent decision of the Tax Court of Canada in Kossow. After the Marechaux case, Kossow is the most important case on abusive charity gifting tax schemes. The Tax Court of Canada decided “As in Maréchaux, there…
In February 2012, the Charity Law Information Program (CLIP) had a very successful “Being Good at Doing Good” conference. We had about 250 attendees in Toronto and the conference lasted 2 days. We had some of the top experts from…
I will be delivering for the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation a full day workshop entitled “Charity Law Boot Camp: compliance and standards issues for Canadian Charities”. It will be on October 12 at Carleton University. Here is the announcement…
The ONN recently called for a delay in the implementation of the Ontario Not-for-Profit Corporations Act (“ONCA”) which is currently expected to be brought into force on January 1, 2013. I personally think that we should get on with the…
Recently the Department of Finance requested submissions on “Strengthening Canada’s AML and Anti-Terrorist Financing Regime”. I sent in a submission that focussed specifically on the vulnerabilities of charities. Here is a copy of my submission on Strengthening Canada’s AML and…
The CRA recently sent a letter discussing the tax implications of a donor making a gift of a newly acquired life insurance policy to a registered charity. Here is a copy of the text in PDF of the CRA letter…
I will be speaking at the APRA conference on “Transparency in the Canadian Charity Sector – the T3010 and Beyond“ Transparency in the Canadian Charity Sector – the T3010 and Beyond Level: General Interest Presenters: Mark Blumberg, Partner, Blumberg Segal LLP…
The CRA recently imposed a small penalty of about $9500 on The Riddell Family Charitable Foundation because it had not met its divestment obligation under the excess business holdings rules. Here is the full letter from the Charities Directorate to…
The CRA has announced new charity information sessions for September and October. Here is some information from the CRA website: Charities Information Sessions registration The Charities Information Sessions are offered to all registered charities. These free sessions are an…
The London Free press and other papers and bloggers have been writing about the involvement of the Mayor of London Ontario with a particular charity gifting tax scheme. The Mayor of London, Ontario, apparently has threatened to sue the papers…
The new Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (CNCA) came into force October 17, 2011. Industry Canada has placed hundreds of pages of information on the new act on their website in over 70 different documents. We have tried to accumulate the…
Here is a CRA letter which discusses the dates and value to be used on official donation receipts for a bequest under will. Here is the CRA letter: “PRINCIPAL ISSUES: Clarification regarding the dates and value to be used on…
CRA recently put out a short press release on its Non-Profit Organization Risk Identification Project. This project applies to non-profits who are not registered charities under the Income Tax Act. CRA is looking at whether these non-profits are acting within…