Here is our article List of Canadian Registered Charities Revoked as a Result of an Audit Over the Last 30 Years In the article, we discuss how we recently requested and received from CRA a list of all Canadian registered charities…
Here is our Blumbergs Snapshot of the Canadian Charity Sector 2018 – Fundraising which shows fundraising revenues and costs over a number of years. Some of the highlights of the Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Canadian Charity Sector 2018 –…
Let’s start with the most obvious. Canadian individuals and corporations can donate to numerous Canadian registered charities that are dealing with the situation in Ukraine and neighbouring countries. Here are examples of some of the groups: Canadian Red Cross Society…
Here are some suggestions for donating to a Canadian charity in a disaster such as we are seeing in Ukraine. You might also find our article Helping Ukraine deal with the humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian invasion helpful. Select…
Here is a recent case in the Federal Court of Appeal with charity Human Concern International v. Canada. (PDF) We had discussed this matter previously. Human Concern International is a Canadian registered charity and CRA had suspended their qualified donee…
The Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson is reviewing CRA audits of registered charities. I have extensive comments at the bottom of this note, if you want to skip some of the background below. There have been concerns expressed by some in the…
The CharityData.ca website is the preeminent freely available transparency tool for information on Canadian registered charities. It has been available since August of 2016 and we have been making intermittent improvements to CharityData.ca ever since it was created. If you…
Here is the Blumbergs’ Pre-Budget Submission for the 2022 Federal Budget that we filed on February 25, 2022. Our top recommendations are: List of Recommendations Primary Recommendations Recommendation 1: That the Federal government amend Section 241 of the Income Tax…
There have been many people wondering how COVID has affected the Canadian charity sector. On March 24, 2021, we released our first report which looked at 1676 registered charities. We released our second report on June 9, 2021, with 11,821 registered…
Recently Ontario passed Bill 9, Non-Profit Sector Appreciation Week Act, 2021. Now in Ontario, the third week in February is non-profit appreciation week. On the plus side, this could be a focal point for organizing some events that show appreciation…
Cryptocurrency has been in the news now for many years. While cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum etc. have received a lot of attention, in my anecdotal experience, very little money has been provided to Canadian charities through cryptocurrency. We…
There are approximately 6,300 private foundations in Canada. Private foundations have been growing at a higher rate than any other type of Canadian registered charity. They have assets of around $100 Billion. Although there are some differences between a private…
The National Post recently had an article by Christopher Nardi “Charity sector worth $300B per year, but CRA audits have dropped four-fold since 2010“. It discusses the dramatic decline in CRA audits previously discussed on our blog at Dramatic changes…
We just launched a new course on fundraising regulation in Canada. Here is a description of the course: Many Canadian charities fundraise. In total fundraising brings in over $20 billion for Canadian charities every year. Through the dedicated work of…
CRA recently provided a redacted letter on “Whether an individual may claim a non-refundable tax credit on their final return for a gift by will, to a U.S. organization.” The letter has a good summary of how donations by Canadian…
I was very pleased to see an article by Roger Colinvaux “Speeding Up Benefits to Charity: Donor Advised Fund and Foundation Reform“. This US article looks at the US charity system but in Canada, we are currently examining similar issues. …
I recently read on a blog with some statistics relating to the number of audits that the Charities Directorate of CRA was conducting each year. Frankly, I could not believe the numbers so I wrote to CRA to ask them…
CRA has the ability to provide penalties to Canadian registered charities and suspend the receipting privileges and qualified donee status of a registered charity. This is in addition to other tools such as revoking the charitable status of a charity. …
In 2009 we wrote a short note entitled “Canadian Charities Based in Ontario and Grants to Qualified donees – Ontario is a little different” which discussed how Ontario charities could not just make grants to qualified donees which may be…
The Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee (OPGT) and its Charitable Property Program will be dealing with certain charitable aspects of the ONCA transition. Here is a presentation by the OPGT entitled “The Role of the Public Guardian and…
CRA has information on its website about how Canadian registered charities must act within their legal objects and how those objects must be legally and exclusively charitable. Objects of a non-profit corporation are usually set out in the corporation’s constating…
The new Ontario Not-for-profit Corporations Act (ONCA) came into force on October 19, 2021. In 2013 we launched our first ONCA Suitcase in which we consolidated available ONCA related information in one PDF document. We have created a new ONCA…
On October 19, 2021 I read the following from a newsletter of Imagine Canada: Imagine Canada supports increasing the disbursement quota to above 5% The disbursement quota consultations closed on September 30. In our submission, we recommended that the…
Here is our new article 20 Ways We May Be Able To Help You With ONCA. It discusses ways in which our law firm may be able to assist non-profits in Ontario in dealing with the new Ontario Not-for-profit Corporations…