Adam Greco and Mark Blumberg will be speaking on April 5, 2019 at the OBA Charity Law Primer of the Charity and Not-for-Profit-Law Section/ Young Lawyers Division on the Top Compliance Issues for Charities: What you need to know including: Income Tax Act…
Here is a redacted Advanced Income Tax Ruling Request response from CRA, dealing with the amalgamation of a registered charity and a non-profit. Registered charities and non-profits can amalgamate and as with all mergers or amalgamations there are a number of complexities…
The CRA's Guidance Canadian registered charities carrying out activities outside Canada indicates it was revised on January 29, 2019. As some of you know CRA has been looking at revising their foreign activity guidance however the changes made in January…
On March 15, 2019, CRA announced that there will be changes to the T3010 Annual Return and the T2050 Application to Register a Charity to account for the recent changes to the political activities rules for Canadian registered charities. Instead…
We are pleased to announce that we will be holding a full-day event on international philanthropy on April 12, 2019: Blumbergs' International Philanthropy Conference 2019. See below for more details and we hope to see you there. Over 5000 Canadian…
The Blumbergs' Canadian Charity Law Boot Camp will be held again on Monday April 8, 2019. This is a one-day boot camp on compliance and standards issues for Canadian registered charities. You can register for the program here. This one-day workshop…
Finance Minister Morneau delivered the 2019 Federal Budget today. Here is our article “2019 Canadian Federal Budget – How will it affect the Canadian charitable sector?“ Finance has already released a Fall Economic Statement that did contain a number of initiatives…
There was an interesting story on the CBC entitled “From sacred to secular: Canada set to lose 9,000 churches, warns national heritage group“. it is well worth reading and discusses how over the next few decades thousands of different religious…
There has been a lot of coverage of the college admission scandal in the United States, in which many celebrities and wealthy executives paid large sums of money (some over $1 million US) to cheat their children’s way into top universities.…
The CRA announced today a number of different matters including “The Government is providing up to $5.3 million in new funding over the 2018–2019 to 2023–2024 period for the CRA to enhance sector outreach and education. This will include reinstating in-person information sessions and…
Today CRA has released the Minister of National Revenue's response to the recent changes on Political Activities by Canadian registered charities. The Government has announced that this is their final response to the Report of the Consultation Panel on the Political…
The Minister of National Revenue, the Honourable Diane Lebouthillier put out a news release on March 7, 2019 dealing the new Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector (ACCS). I was expecting details in the budget but receiving these details today by press…
The Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) Charities Directorate is the de facto regulator of Registered Charities in Canada and they audit between 600 and 800 charities per year. This article Registered Charities and CRA Charity Audits will help you understand the process…
The SNC-Lavalin affair has been in the news for a while. Here is an article on how this SNC-Lavalin scandal relates to the charity sector.
An interesting little case in BC called Bodner Estate. Irene Bodna died and left about 8m to 24 different registered charities and non-profits that are all interested in animal welfare and the environment. A small amount was as an outright…
The CRA recently posted on their T3010 page that “In December 2018, the rules governing the political activities of registered charities changed as a result of new legislation that permits charities to carry on unlimited public policy dialogue and development activities in…
Here is the text of a recent CRA letter on a rebate donation program and whether donors can claim a tax deduction. Not surprisingly CRA was not prepared to confirm that a donation receipt can be issued and these sorts…
In the Tax Court of Canada case Kaul v. The Queen, CRA denied certain claims for tax credits relating to an art donation scheme. The taxpayers appealed and the Tax Court of Canada sided with CRA. There is lots of…
The CRA recently released a question and answer document on the December 2018 political activity changes and the new guidance on public policy dialogue and development activities by charities. Here is the Q&A. Here is the text of the CRA…
The CRA has recently updated its info sheet “How a Charity Completes Its GST/HST Return”. Here is the CRA document.
The CRA document P113 – Gifts and Income Tax 2018 is a helpful guide to the tax consequences of donations to registered charities and qualified donees. It has been recently updated. The pamphlet describes “What's new for 2018? Universities outside Canada –…
Global News journalist Stewart Bell recently wrote an article “Government revokes charity status of Canadian Jewish group that supported ‘foreign armed forces’“. The articles discusses the recent revocation of the Canadian registered charity Beth Oloth Charitable Organization. You can see detailed…
I recently wondered with this new Ontario government whether there was any change relating to the new Ontario Not-For-Profit Corporations Act (ONCA). It is supposed to come into force at the beginning of 2020. So I wrote to the Ontario…
The CRA today released its draft guidance “Public policy dialogue and development activities by charities”. This guidance will replace CRA's Guidance CPS-022, Political activities. The CRA is asking for feedback on this draft administrative guidance and providing until April 23, 2019…