There are approximately 6,300 private foundations in Canada. Private foundations have been growing at a higher rate than any other type of Canadian registered charity. They have assets of around $100 Billion. Although there are some differences between a private…
It looks like Bill S-216, the Effective and Accountable Charities Act has passed the Senate and will now move to the House of Commons. It was formerly Bill S-222 but died when the Liberals called that very important 2021 Federal…
I recently read on a blog with some statistics relating to the number of audits that the Charities Directorate of CRA was conducting each year. Frankly, I could not believe the numbers so I wrote to CRA to ask them…
CRA has the ability to provide penalties to Canadian registered charities and suspend the receipting privileges and qualified donee status of a registered charity. This is in addition to other tools such as revoking the charitable status of a charity. …
At a time when charities need funds and private foundations alone are sitting on $95 billion dollars, the Advisory Committee to the Charitable Sector (ACCS) has prepared a submission to Finance Canada stating that the disbursement quota (DQ) issue is…
Here is the Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Ontario Charity Sector 2019. We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2019 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project and focussed on the T3010s of Ontario registered charities. …
Here is the Blumbergs’ Canadian Charity Sector Snapshot 2019. We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2019 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project. The database covers about 83,892 of the approximately 86,000 registered charities…
The Conservatives have put forward some proposals in their platform that are unclear and could have a significant negative effect on the charity sector, especially larger charities such as universities, hospitals, international development and environmental organizations. Here are the proposals…
Here is the Blumbergs’ Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance for the Pre-Budget Consultations in Advance of the Upcoming 2022 Federal Budget. We offer 11 recommendations namely the following: List of Recommendations Primary Recommendations Recommendation…
With respect to a recent bill passed by the Senate, but not the House of Commons, relating to structured arrangements/direction and control we have prepared the following blog posts with our concerns about the bill and its ultimate impact. …
In the last couple of weeks I have read two separate CRA notes on the importance of maintaining sufficient separation between a registered charity and a non-qualified donee (whether non-profit, foreign charity, for-profit, etc) Here is an excerpt from a…
On April 21, 2021 we had our Blumbergs’ Canadian Charity Law Boot Camp 2021. It is the second Boot Camp that we have conducted online and our tenth Boot Camp in total. Those who missed the course can catch the…
We have recently made a number of updates to CharityData.ca. The most important update is including more 2020 and 2019 charity returns. Also, if you review the foreign activities of Canadian charities under the “Programs” tab you will see that…
I just finished reading an excellent paper entitled Cross-Border Philanthropy – A U.S. Perspective by Eric Zolt. It both provides a good summary of the rationale for donation tax incentives but also raises questions of whether the US system is…
Recently a bill was proposed in the Senate –BILL S-222 An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (use of resources), which will eliminate the “own activities” requirement of charities and change the rules for Canadian charities working with non-charities,…
Recently a bill was proposed in the Senate –BILL S-222 An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (use of resources), which will eliminate the “own activities” requirement of charities and change the rules for Canadian charities working with non-charities,…
Recently a bill was proposed in the Senate –BILL S-222 An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (use of resources), which will eliminate the “own activities” requirement of charities and change the rules for Canadian charities working with non-charities,…
Recently a bill was proposed in the Senate –BILL S-222 An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (use of resources), which will eliminate the “own activities” requirement of charities and change the rules for Canadian charities working with non-charities,…
Canada just added 13 new listed terrorist organizations including the Proud Boys, Atomwaffen Division, the Base, and Russian Imperial Movement. They also added Al Qaida affiliates, ISIS affiliates and a Kashmiri group. As Public Safety notes “When an entity is…
I requested a long time ago from CRA some WE Charity early documents. They only arrived this week and here they are: 886578095RR0001_Application_Redacted 886578095RR0001_Gov-Docs_Redacted 886578095RR0001_N.O.R_Redacted 2005 T3010 – WE Charity 2005 WE Charity FS_Redacted 2006 T3010 – WE Charity…
After years of seeing less and less transparency about registered charities in Canada coming from the CRA, for various reasons, we now have one improvement from CRA in terms of disclosure about foreign activities. I want to commend them for…
I recently ran across a very good article entitled: “Going the Extra Mile: The Liability of Foreignness in U.S. Foundation International Grantmaking to Local NGOs”. It was written by three US professors namely Carrie R. Oelberger, Jesse Lecy, and Simon…
Today an article appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek entitled “How a Charity Superstar Innovated Its Way to Political Scandal: The Kielburger brothers courted celebrities, became voluntourism pioneers, and built a Davos-friendly model of philanthrocapitalism. Then a Canadian Covid-relief deal got people…
An interesting report from the OECD on charities in many different countries recently was published. It was given a really exciting title namely “Taxation and Philanthropy” so you might have missed it at the checkout at your local grocery store. …