Over the last few years in both Canada and the US there have been greater attempts to rate charities. As part of the Blumbergs’ Charity Law Institute 2014 see “The Great Debate: Be it Resolved That Rating charities improves…
Following up on the 2014 Budget, Finance has released draft tax legislation for consultation. The changes with respect to bequests to registered charities are from Budget 2014, and will allow some greater flexibility for claiming the charitable donations against either…
The CRA yesterday released its guidance on ineligible individuals (CG-024). The new rules were announced in the 2011 Federal Budget and it is good to see CRA finally providing its guidance on ineligible individuals. Here is the CRA summary: The…
Andrew Coyne recently wrote an opinion piece in the National Post in which he supports the idea of eliminating the tax credit for donations to registered charities. The article is entitled “Problem with charities isn’t their politics, it’s their generous…
In this article entitled “Partial Glimpse at 2013 T3010 Filings Dealing with Political Activities by Canadian Registered Charities” I discuss the 51,000 Canadian registered charities have had their T3010 for 2013 added to the CRA database so far. This 51,000 represents…
On a number of occasions, we have assembled a list of Canadian charities that had lost their registrations for cause. We have now updated the list to August 2014. This list contains over 5 years of information on charities deregistered…
Jeff Gray recently wrote a piece in the Globe and Mail on a quirky category of foreign charities who are given qualified donee status by virtue of being on the “List of registered foreign charitable organizations that have received a…
Industry Canada has been warning Federal non-profits that are under the old Canada Corporations Act to continue. They are sending out with Annual Returns under the old act warnings to non-profits to continue or face dissolution.
As I have noted before I am concerned that many thousands of Federal non-profit corporations have not continued to the new CNCA and at some point after October 17, 2014 they will be dissolved by Industry Canada. That is a…
The B.C. Ministry of Finance has released a White Paper which sets out policy recommendations and proposed draft legislation for a new and more modern “Society Act” in British Columbia, which governs not-for-profit organizations in B.C. The consultation process to…
I recently received from the Charities Directorate of CRA some charts showing the combined assets and revenues of the Canadian registered charity sector for 2011 and 2012. A few quick comments: There was an increase in reported assets from 2011…
Here is a link to an article I wrote entitled “Selecting Great Charities – only tough if your eyes are open” which recently appeared on the CanadaHelps website. For a more detailed version of the article see www.smartgiving.ca
Here is a copy of our submission to the Finance Committee for the 2015 pre-budget consultations. In the pre-budget submission we discuss having greater transparency with both non-profit organizations and registered charities and also the issue of charities and political…
Over the last 20 years CRA has revoked a number of charities for ostensibly being involved in partisan political activities, or exceeding the 10% of resources on political activities, or for having an unstated political purpose. In light of all…
CRA has released a letter which discusses whether GST/HST applies to membership dues. This particular letter involved a non-profit corporation seeking a GST/HST exemption for dues paid by its members. Based on the information provided by the non-profit corporation, CRA…
I recently contacted Industry Canada and they advised that as of July 26, 2014 there have been 5,386 continuances to the new CNCA. As there are ostensibly 19,000 Federal corporations that are/were under the old Canada Corporations Act there appear…
Here is an interesting article that appeared in the website. It discusses a “climate change-sceptic charity” that is being forced to stop certain “educational” activities and to set up an affiliated but separate entity to propagate material that “lacked balance and…
In the last week there has been a large number of articles in the Canadian media on Canadian charities and political activities. I would make a few preliminary points that sometimes get lost in the coverage. 1) Canadian registered charities can…
In the 2012 Federal Budget the Conservative government announced that it was allocating $8 million for various initiatives related to charities and political activities. More recently papers have been describing a $13 million budget. I wondered about the…
Finally. It took more than 3 years but CRA has identified that it has revoked a charity for in part having “ineligible individuals” controlling the organization. I was sure that I was going to die of old age before that…
In May, Cathy Hawara, the Director General of the Charities Directorate delivered a speech which touches on a number of important issues such as the constitutional framework for charities, political activities by registered charities, independence of the regulator, compliance approach…
The Canadian Charity Law Association is presenting some webinars. For more information see: www.charitylawassociation.ca or UPCOMING WEBINARS Charitable Receipting – The Do’s and Don’ts with Mark Blumberg Join us for a webinar on Aug 13, 2014 at 12:00 PM EDT. …
In October 2013 there were only 1800 continuances according to Industry Canada from the old CCA to the new CNCA. That number has now jumped to 4175 corporations by May 31, 2014 and is probably higher over the last 5 weeks. That…
The CRTC recently updated their FAQs to include a discussion of an exemption related to Canadian registered charities. If a commercial electronic message (CEM) sent by a Canadian registered charity has the “primary purpose” of raising funds for the charity…