We have a number of resources to assist including our online course Receipting for Canadian Registered Charities with an updated Receipting Kit.
If you wish to retain our law firm to assist with your charity or non-profit’s receipting questions, you can contact us.
CRA recently released a letter with respect to spousal sharing of charitable gifts that was written to David Sherman, one of Canada's top tax lawyers. As a result of recent legislative amendments in Bill C-43 which received Royal Assent on…
Should CRA do a better job of warning Canadians about abusive charity gifting tax schemes? Well a group of Plaintiffs who participated in the abusive tax shelter gifting scheme Global Learning Group Inc (GLGI) thinks so. “The Plaintiffs made…
Here is an updated version of the Canadian Charity Legal Checklist. For those who are interested in reviewing legal compliance for their registered charity they may find the checklist helpful.
We are looking forward to presenting the Blumbergs' Canadian Charity Law Boot Camp 2015 on April 14, 2015. For information or to register see: Blumbergs' Canadian Charity Law Boot Camp 2015
The Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency has revoked the charitable registration of Ecotecture: Centre for Ecological Art and Architecture for its involvement in a scheme known as the Via Project or Vintage Iconic Archives. The former registered charity…
Tax Court of Canada has released a number of judgements dealing with false receipting this week. The cases all relate to a scheme in Vancouver involving the issuance of approximately $12 million in false receipts. The cases of Azim Bani…
I just read this CRA FAQ with the latest numbers on abusive gifting charity tax shelters. “As of March 31, 2014, the CRA has denied more than $6.3 billion in donation claims and reassessed over 190,000 taxpayers who participated in…
The CBC has disclosed that CRA had provided them with a list of private information on taxpayers who had applied for certain tax benefits as a result of donating cultural property through the Cultural Property Export Review Board. Disclosure…
CRA has put up another reminder to Canadians about abusive charity gifting tax shelters. The title is “Warning: be cautious if you are thinking of participating in a gifting tax shelter schemes” CRA notes “Since 2006, the CRA has seen a…
Ian Ford and Norma Ford appealed a Tax Court of Canada 2014 decision relating to taxation years going back to around 1999 -2001. The decision notes that “Ian Ford and Norma Ford participated in an art donation program operated by Canadian…
The Supreme Court will be hearing the Guindon case in December. The case deals with the constitutionality of certain penalties that are provided for in the Income Tax Act (Canada). We have discussed the case in an earlier blog posting. It…
The CRA announced that it has revoked a charity, Skyway Foundation of Canada, for issuing inflated receipts for donations of marketable securities. In our Receipting Kit we note: “When a donor donates shares on certain stock exchanges, the CRA has…
On October 3, 2014, CRA released an updated resource on tax shelter arrangements on the CRA website. This page provides detailed information on what is a tax shelter, provides links to case law dealing with tax shelters, and cautionary steps…
Did Mr. Imoh give charitable donations of 45,000, in cash, to Revival Time Ministries International over 3 years? Did Mr. Bello give $15,000 to the same charity? This is the crux of the case. You can read about Revival Time…
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…
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…
We have just released the Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Canadian Charity Sector 2012. The Canadian charity sector has grown again. The Canadian charity sector is a vital part of Canadian society and economy with revenue of over $223 billion and expenditures of…
On May 29, 2014 the Supreme Court of Canada denied leave to appeal in Neville v. National Foundation for Christian Leadership. It was an application for leave to appeal the decision of the BCCA in January 2014. Here is original…
I recently requested numbers from CRA on abusive charity gifting tax schemes. The number are trending down. 2006 was the highest at $1.3 billion. 2011 was $299 million. 2012 was $273,000. 2013 preliminary numbers are $100,000 but as we know…
We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2012 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project. We have taken a subset of the 2012 T3010 data to look at only registered charities based in Alberta. …
Here is an updated version of the Blumbergs Charity Legal Checklist. We hope that you find it a useful tool to help your Canadian registered charity deal with compliance issues. It is a work in progress so please do send in…
In the Holst case the Honourable Justice Judith Woods rejected certain taxpayers alleged donations to a church. She noted: “[9] I accept that Mr. Holst and Ms. Hillier attended church services at Israelite and Celestial and that…
In Johnson v. The Queen the Tax Court of Canada dealt with a case in which Mr. Johnson had made claims in 2002 and 2003 taxation years for donations of $18,550 and $15,500 respectively. Mister Justice Campbell concluded “It is my view that…
The Department of Finance has released the “Notice of Ways and Means Motion to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures and Explanatory Notes”. Some of the provisions were announced in…