In a recent speech Andrew Hind of the UK Charity Commission touches upon trends including the importance of charities being able to demonstrate their public benefit and to successfully use technology. The speech is located at:
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.
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Here is an article I wrote for Charity Village entitled “Is it legal and ethical to take over a dormant Canadian charity? ”
Many people have quite rightly asked “why does it take so long for a charity tax shelter scheme to ever make it to court?”. “Why does a 2001 donation only get to court in 2010?”. For example, we recently had…
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 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…
The CRA revoked the registered status of the Canadian Lacrosse Association “For issuing more than $60.7 million in donation receipts for abusive transactions arising from its role as a participant in tax shelter arrangements that, in the opinion of the…
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…
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…
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.” …
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…
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…
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…
Here are 4 CRA webcasts namely 1) Financial Statements and Books and Records, 2) Gifting and receipting, 3) Payroll 4) T3010B: Line by Line Review. They are available at:
Imagine Canada has released Bill C-470 Twelve Frequently Asked Questions and Bill C-470 Supplementary Questions and Answers. Both are good documents and worth reading. Bill C-470 TWELVE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Bill C-470 SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS As…