We launched today at the Blumbergs' Charity Law Institute 2018 the Blumbergs Canadian Charity Sector Snapshot 2016. It has some interesting statistics on the Canadian charitable sector from the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return filings. Some of the highlights of the…
The Blumbergs' Canadian Charity Law Institute 2018 will be held on October 15, 2018. Here is the Agenda. Register here. Some of our topics and speakers include: Reflections on the Senate Committee on the Charitable Sector – The Honourable Ratna Omidvar – Senator…
Join us on Tuesday October 16, 2018 in Toronto for a financial capacity building workshop with Gordon Holley from Humanity Financial Management. Gordon will show organization leaders what they can do to increase the financial capacity of their charities and…
The Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency today released guidance on “Charities and public policy advocacy“. This is on the heels of the Finance Department releasing draft legislative proposals recently and requesting comments by October 13, 2018. CRA notes that…
If your Canadian registered charity conducts foreign activities there are rules that apply. If you are having trouble explaining that to foreign groups that you work with you might find our article “Canadian Charities and Foreign Activities – A Very…
CRA is asking for some volunteers to provide feedback on their Charities IT Modernization Project (CHAMP) T3010 system. If you are interested here is the information from CRA. I understand that there is limited space for participants at this point but…
[FURTHER UPDATED ARTICLE: Foreign Universities Applying to be Registered Universities in Canada: What we have learned.] Here is our updated article on Foreign Universities Applying for Prescribed University Status in Canada 2018. If your university or alma mater is outside…
I felt I had to write an article because the myth that low overhead is good is so widespread and pernicious. I originally wrote the article in 2008 and updated it in 2018. When a charity does financial statements that…
The CRA announced today that they are delaying the Charities IT Modernization Project (CHAMP) till June 2019. When CHAMP is launched, charities will no longer be able to make application by paper application and will have to use the CHAMP system.…
Finance has put out a press release that it will be consulting on the new political activity proposals that were released on Friday. Here is the text of the release: Consulting Canadians on Draft Legislative Proposals Regarding Political Activities of…
I am looking forward to presenting to the CAGP Advanced Canadian Gift Planning Symposium on international philanthropy in Ottawa on October 17, 2018. Robert Kleinman, Executive Vice-President of The Jewish Community Foundation of Montreal, and myself will present on “Charity Performed Abroad…
On Friday, September 14, 2018 at 5:01PM the Department of Finance released the “Legislative Proposals Notice of Ways and Means Motions” and also the “Explanatory Notes” on their website. We will be commenting on these changes to the Income Tax Act over…
Here is our article Ontario rules change for compensation of certain directors of non-profit corporations that are charities.
The CRA announced today that they will be changing the mailing address for the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return effective October 8, 2018 but for other correspondence, there is no change of address. Here is the note from CRA: Information return…
Revenu Quebec has provided an English translation of the Non-Profit Corporations Guide to Filing the Information and Income Tax Return 2017. This guide will help you complete the CO-17.SP, Déclaration de revenus et de renseignements des sociétés sans but lucratif. As Revenu…
Canadian Charities do a lot of great work. But with over 86,000 of them, there may be a few hundred really bad apples amongst the lot and probably thousands of ineffectual charities, there will be times that you will be…
Recently author and fundraiser Gail Picco wrote an extensive article on the CWP decision entitled “How an Ontario Superior Court Decision Has Remade the Charity Sector, Failed Vulnerable Canadians and Why Some People Are Cheering?”
Althia Raj's article “Super PACs In Canada? Liberals Wrestle With Politically-Active Charities After Court Ruling” covers the fallout from the Canada Without Poverty case and provides some important updates. Althia Raj reports: OTTAWA — In an effort to prevent Canadian…
The CRA announced today that they are appealing the CWB decision. This is not surprising as we noted in our blog on July 30, 2018 “Canada Without Poverty vs. AG – a pyrrhic victory for CWP and a disaster for the…
Here is a copy of our Submission to the Federal Finance Committee dated August 1, 2018 for the 2019 Federal Budget. The submission covers transparency of non-profits and registered charities, as well as a number other recommendations to improve the regulation of registered…
Here is my article on the recent CWP v. AG case entitled Canada Without Poverty vs. Attorney General of Canada – a pyrrhic victory for CWP and a disaster for the charity sector. In short, I think it is a bad…
The Canada Without Poverty v. Attorney General of Canada decision was released on July 16th. Here is the decision. I have written extensively about the importance of having Canadian charities engage in some political activities and how the rules can…
Here is a letter from CRA discussing when an official donation receipt can be issued for a gift from an estate and how the 2016 changes affect this. Here is the text of the letter: “LANGIND E DOCNUM 2018-0745851C6 AUTHOR…
There are certain rules in the Income Tax Act that only apply to private foundations and not charitable organizations and public foundations. These rules are called the 'excess business holdings' regime or 'excess corporate holdings' regime. They limit the amount…