Today Finance Minister Jim Flaherty introduced the Canadian Federal Budget 2014. The budget had a large number of provisions dealing with non-profits and charities. Here are some excerpts from the Federal Budget in one PDF document. Overall I was…
Today Finance Minister Jim Flaherty introduced the Canadian Federal Budget 2014. The budget had a large number of provisions dealing with non-profits and charities. Here are some excerpts from the Federal Budget in one PDF document. Overall I was…
We recently reviewed the T3010 information for 2012 to see how many charities identify themselves as doing work that relates to the environment. When we reviewed the T3010 about 1150 registered charities identify themselves as carrying on some work in…
About 19,000 Canadian charities have filed their 2013 T3010s so far. Of those charities some note that they are doing political activities. Here are the descriptions of the political activities described by those charities.
In a Globe and Mail article entitled “Budget will include measures to expose links between charities and crime, Flaherty says” there is a discussion of potential items affecting charities in the 2014 Federal Budget set to be delivered on February…
Last night I was interviewed by Evan Solomon on CBC Power and Politics discussing Canadian charities and political activities. Other guests included Marlo Raynolds (former Executive Director of the Pembina Institute) and John Bennett of Sierra Club Canada. Here is…
The UK Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has issued reports on the Charities Commission and UK tax authorities (HMRC) and their handling of regulatory matters. The Charities Commission has put out a press release with a very solid response to the…
Mr. Berg made a ‘donation’ to a registered charity, Cheder Chabad, and the registration of that charity has subsequently been revoked. The Allen Berg case is important because it discusses “donative intent” and the Friedberg decision. It upholds Marechaux and…
Last year the Federal Court of Appeal in Cheder Chabad v. The Queen, ordered CRA to delay the publication of a notice of intention to revoke the charitable status of the registered charity by four months. It appears that CRA…
If you search the CRA Charities Listing under revoked for cause charities it provides a list of Canadian charities that have been revoked for cause. I noticed recently that Assemblée de Dieu de Montreal-Nord has had its charity status revoked…
The BC Supreme Court recently dealt with a case involving TLC The Land Conservancy of British Columbia Inc. and whether certain assets may be used to satisfy creditors. TLC is having financial problems and trying to restructure under the Companies’…
On January 10, 2014 David Ajise, a former tax preparer operating in Toronto, was sentenced to a 30 month jail term for fraud over $5,000. Ajise is the former proprietor of Datronix Solutions, a tax preparation service. A CRA investigation…
The Globe and Mail recently had an article which discusses the concept of perpetual endowments as well as the use of donor advised funds and bequests. Read article > Here is also another article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy dealing with…
Probably not. Otherwise that would be about 5-10 times more funds than all Canadian registered charities spent on political activities in 2012. In fact, when we reviewed who spent the most on political activities it appears to me that the…
The problem of “abusive charity gifting tax schemes” continues. These are schemes that promise that if you put in say $1000 through a complicated scheme you will end up with a $5000 receipt and therefore you can save $2500 in…
The Charity Commission of England and Wales is under fire over the last few months. Those who are interested in charity regulation should be paying attention. The Charity Commission is a beacon for charity regulators and those that want charities…
We have updated the Blumbergs’ 2013 Receipting Kit. Here is a link to the new Blumbergs' 2018 Receipting Kit.
CRA is putting out better notices on donating wisely. I particularly like this advice “Get to know the charity.” Start by visiting the charity’s website to learn about its activities and how it’s managed. You can also review its financial…
The Federal Court of Appeal has decisively dismissed the Kossow appeal. Kossow dealt with what CRA would term an “abusive charity gifting tax scheme”. Kossow is the second major case dealing with these schemes, the first one being Marechaux. The…
John Montague has written an article entitled “The Law and Financial Transparency in Churches: Reconsidering the Form 990 Exemptions” in the Cardozo Law Review. In the US, churches don’t have to file the Form 990 annual return, however, in Canada…
Industry released today draft regulations to Canada’s Anti-spam Legislation (CASL) which will now come into effect on July 1, 2014. An important exclusion that will be welcomed by registered charities is that the Act does not apply to an electronic…
I just reviewed the latest T3010 data disk for 2013 and here are the descriptions of activities for political activities by Canadian charities. This is only based on 7900 of the approximately 86,000 charities. Description Wrote less than 5 letters…
The Humanitarian Coalition has launched an appeal for Typhoon Haiyan which has killed many people in the Philippines and left many homeless. “The Humanitarian Coalition is a joint appeal mechanism. It is comprised of CARE Canada, Oxfam Canada, Oxfam-Québec, Plan…
Saskatchewan has introduced a bill that would regulate informal public appeals. This will cover situations like when a fire destroys a family home and funds are raised to help the family and what to do if there are excess funds…