The recent terrorist attacks in Quebec and Ottawa are a reminder of the impact of terrorism. Canadian charities are an important part of Canadian society and it is important that they protect their employees, volunteers, and other resources from…
The CRA announced that it has revoked a charity, Skyway Foundation of Canada, for issuing inflated receipts for donations of marketable securities. In our Receipting Kit we note: “When a donor donates shares on certain stock exchanges, the CRA has…
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 39 page report rips into charitable…
On October 3, 2014, CRA released an updated resource on tax shelter arrangements on the CRA website. This page provides detailed information on what is a tax shelter, provides links to case law dealing with tax shelters, and cautionary steps…
We have prepared a more detailed article on Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) for Canadian Registered Charities and Non-profit Organizations. CASL is a complicated piece of legislation that applies to CEM that are either sent from, or accessed on, a computer…
CRA has been sending out numerous notices with respect to the importance of Canada Corporations Act (CCA) corporations continuing to the new Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (CNCA). A number of people have contacted us with respect to the notice. In…
I will be delivering a webinar for the Canadian Charity Law Association entitled “Foreign Activities 101: Introduction to Canadian charities carrying out foreign activities”. It is free but you need to register. Here is a link to the registration page…
Did Mr. Imoh give charitable donations of 45,000, in cash, to Revival Time Ministries International over 3 years? Did Mr. Bello give $15,000 to the same charity? This is the crux of the case. You can read about Revival Time…
We recently reviewed the T3010 information for 2012. The database was prepared by the Charities Directorate of CRA in June 2014 and covers about 85,477 charities which is almost all of the 2012 T3010 returns. Canadian registered charities were required…
Over the last few years in both Canada and the US there have been greater attempts to rate charities. As part of the Blumbergs’ Charity Law Institute 2014 see “The Great Debate: Be it Resolved That Rating charities improves…
The CRA yesterday released its guidance on ineligible individuals (CG-024). The new rules were announced in the 2011 Federal Budget and it is good to see CRA finally providing its guidance on ineligible individuals. Here is the CRA summary: The…
In this article entitled “Partial Glimpse at 2013 T3010 Filings Dealing with Political Activities by Canadian Registered Charities” I discuss the 51,000 Canadian registered charities have had their T3010 for 2013 added to the CRA database so far. This 51,000 represents…
Here is a link to an article I wrote entitled “Selecting Great Charities – only tough if your eyes are open” which recently appeared on the CanadaHelps website. For a more detailed version of the article see www.smartgiving.ca
Here is a copy of our submission to the Finance Committee for the 2015 pre-budget consultations. In the pre-budget submission we discuss having greater transparency with both non-profit organizations and registered charities and also the issue of charities and political…
Over the last 20 years CRA has revoked a number of charities for ostensibly being involved in partisan political activities, or exceeding the 10% of resources on political activities, or for having an unstated political purpose. In light of all…
Here is an interesting article that appeared in the website. It discusses a “climate change-sceptic charity” that is being forced to stop certain “educational” activities and to set up an affiliated but separate entity to propagate material that “lacked balance and…
In the 2012 Federal Budget the Conservative government announced that it was allocating $8 million for various initiatives related to charities and political activities. More recently papers have been describing a $13 million budget. I wondered about the…
Finally. It took more than 3 years but CRA has identified that it has revoked a charity for in part having “ineligible individuals” controlling the organization. I was sure that I was going to die of old age before that…
In May, Cathy Hawara, the Director General of the Charities Directorate delivered a speech which touches on a number of important issues such as the constitutional framework for charities, political activities by registered charities, independence of the regulator, compliance approach…
The CRTC recently updated their FAQs to include a discussion of an exemption related to Canadian registered charities. If a commercial electronic message (CEM) sent by a Canadian registered charity has the “primary purpose” of raising funds for the charity…
CRTC has recently released its “Guidelines to help businesses develop corporate compliance programs”. The CRTC is quite tentative in their Guidelines. This we know. The Guidelines are not legal advice, they are guidance and they “may” help facilitate legal…
I never thought I would live to see the day. Yes a popular magazine has a story that revolves around the T2050 – Application to Register a Charity Under the Income Tax Act. Now Magazine has an article entitled “Men’s…
On July 1, 2014 Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) will come into force. Here is a brief article describing some of the key points of CASL and how it will impact Canadian charities. For further information on CASL you might find…
In Narul Hassan vs. The Queen it is another false receipting case. “It appears almost certain that this program involved a fraud on the Canadian tax system, and therefore on the Canadian public. It is not clear to me…