Fundraising Guidance and Receipting Workshops for Charities in Ottawa – July 8, 2010 at United Way
Here is a link to the upcoming Ottawa seminar
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’s Charities Connection #3 -Service Clubs, HST and website font sizes
here is CRA’s Charities Connection #3
Blumbergs Canadian Charity Law List – June 2010
Here is the Blumbergs Canadian Charity Law List – June 2010 -if you would like to be on our mailing list you can do so at: https://cancharlaw.thewire.dev/subscribe/ If you find the information useful please forward to friends. There is no…
CNCA – Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act – draft regulations and consultation on regulations
Industry Canada last week released draft regulations for the CNCA, the new Federal non-profit act. There is also a “Notice from the Director — Consultation on proposed Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Regulations” dated June 25, 2010 which contains an explanatory note…
Fundraising Guidance and Receipting Workshops for Charities in Toronto – July 5, 2010 at CNIB
I will be leading two new workshops for the Charity Law Information Program (CLIP) on two hot legal issues – Fundraising Compliance and Appropriate Receipting. One can attend them both, plus a networking lunch, for $50, or each workshop is…
How Much Should A Canadian Charity Spend on Overhead? June 2010 by Mark Blumberg
Here is a copy of my article “How Much Should A Canadian Charity Spend on Overhead?” which was just published in the Canadian Donor’s Guide.
2010 Hudson Report Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances – People in Canada remit 12.2 b
The US-based Hudson Institute has released its 2010 Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances. It contains lots of statistics about official development assistance (ODA), international philanthropy and remittances. On the plus side if you add ODA, international philanthropy and remittances…
Air India Flight 182 Report – discusses terrorist financing and Canadian charities
The long anticipated report by Commissioner John C Major entitled “Air India Flight 182: A Canadian Tragedy” was released today. The report is located at: http://www.majorcomm.ca/en/reports/finalreport/ Furthermore, Volume 5 deals with terrorist financing at and specifically there is a…
CRA discusses Third-Party Civil Penalties in letter to Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners
CRA in a letter discusses certain issues that were posed at the 2008 STEP National Conference. Question 12 dealt with Third-Party Civil Penalties and it noted that as of April 21, 2008 12 such cases existed of which “2 relate…
CRA letter on whether provincial non-profit corporation necessarily tax exempt under ITA
In this letter CRA discusses “Will a corporation that is being incorporated under provincial non-profit legislation be tax-exempt under paragraph 149(1)(l) of the ITA?” CRA notes “Paragraph 149(1)(l) of the Act (set out below), provides an exemption from tax for…
UK Charity Commission publishes revised financial guidance for UK charities
The UK Charity Commission has published some revised guidance for UK charities on risk management, financial difficulties and insolvency, financial reserves and internal financial controls. While UK law is not identical to Canadian law these documents provide very helpful information…
Charity Gifting Tax Shelters in Canada – another side
I frequently receive e-mails from people, or relatives of people, who have been involved in an abusive charity gifting tax shelter. I thought I would share one of those e-mails and also my response. Abusive charity tax shelters – it…
Canada Revenue Agency Form T1240: Registered Charity Adjustment Request for T3010
CRA has updated the form for Canadian registered charities to file with CRA if the charity has made errors in its T3010 Registered Charity Information Return and related forms. The form can be found at: It is important that…
Uniform Law Consultation- Informal Public Appeals – Consultation Paper
Not all public appeals are from registered charities. Sometimes these appeals are spontaneous in response to a disaster or tragedy. The Uniform Law Commission of Canada has circulated a consultation paper on the topic and the ULCC tries to encourage…
CRA announces funding to help Canadian charities on fundraising, transparency and false receipting
The Honourable Keith Ashfield, Minister of National Revenue, announced today contribution funding for seven new projects dealing with fundraising, transparency and false receipting under the Charities Partnership and Outreach Program (CPOP) of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). One of the…
Is it legal and ethical to take over a dormant Canadian charity? – my Charity Village article
Here is an article I wrote for Charity Village entitled “Is it legal and ethical to take over a dormant Canadian charity? ”
CRA letter on clergy residence deduction and Canadian charities
This CRA letter discusses the clergy residence deduction and “Is an Executive Director of a charitable organization eligible for a clergy residence deduction pursuant to paragraph 8(1)(c) of the Act.” LANGIND E DOCNUM 2010-0363501E5 AUTHOR Srikanth, Vyjayanthi DESCKEY 25 RATEKEY…
Another class action lawsuit against abusive charity tax shelter scheme – more lawyers are sued
Another class action lawsuit has been launched in Canada with respect to a charity donation tax shelter arrangement. The class action law suit concerns Donations Canada Charitable Donation program which was a program marketed by Parklane Financial Group Limited. According…
GST/HST and Canadian Charities – HST changes in BC and Ontario will affect Canadian charities
CRA just revised its “Goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) checklist for charities”. The checklist is located at: The text of the checklist is below: Goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) checklist for charities Are you HST…
CRA adds new pages on “re-registration” for charity that has lost its registered charity status
The Charities Directorate has added some new web pages about the process of a revoked charity re-registering for charitable status. The process for re-registering a charity can be far more difficult than setting up a new charity and it is…
Can Canadian employer in disaster provide financial assistance to employee extended family abroad?
The CRA recently discussed “Whether in the particular circumstances, financial assistance provided by an employer to its employees’ extended families in the XXXXX who were directly affected by the hurricanes and typhoons in XXXXX, would be taxable to the employees.” …
Compensation of Directors of charities in Ontario -generally prohibited without court order
Members of a board of directors of a charity should not be compensated for their work. In Ontario, generally directors of charities are not entitled to compensation for serving on the board of a charity. In fact, by being a…
Second CRA Charities Connection bulletin released
This CRA Charities Connection focuses on payroll and income tax. Payroll, deduction and remittances are important as directors of charities can be held personally liable for failure to remit the amounts to the CRA. You can read the Charities Connection…
Some interesting Canadian registered charity statistics from the CRA in 2010
Cathy Hawara, Acting Director General of the Charities Directorate, delivered a presentation on April 30, 2010 and during that presentation she provided some interesting statistics on registered charities. I always knew that the Federal and Provincial governments are the largest…