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…
For those who don’t know there is a concept called tax expenditures. It is an estimate of the cost to a government of certain tax concessions. How much does it cost the Federal government to give a tax break such…
I have been contacted by a small number of charities and individuals who are dealing with the issue of a board member donating to the freedom convoy and how to deal with it. This is a situation where an individual…
The demise of the Kids Company charity in the UK was a big event. It was a large charity that had close connections with government that very quickly imploded. The Charity Commission notes: An official report has found that…
We previously discussed on February 6, 2022 the establishment of a non-profit organization apparently to receive the vast amounts of crowdsourced money for the “Freedom Convoy”. Apparently, they have added more board members. They had three and now they have…
In March 2021, the Federal Government released their official response to the Report of the Special Committee on the Charitable Sector: “Catalyst for Change: A Roadmap to a Stronger Charitable Sector.” The full response can be found in PDF version…
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…
Here are the CRA letters from a number of recent Canadian registered charity revocations. These letters from CRA cover many different grounds for de-registration. For a number of years, we have been providing the public with copies of CRA revocation…
The League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith and B’nai Brith Foundation District No. 22 were two Canadian registered charities that were revoked as a result of audit by CRA. I requested copies of the documents that are publicly available…
In a recent Toronto Star article entitled “Ontario government making fixes to troubled online business registry” it notes; The Ontario government is taking care of business by cranking repairs of its troubled online corporate registry into overdrive. As first disclosed…
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…
If you are one of the Registered Journalism Organizations and there are currently only 5 RJOs then you may find this guide T1000-2 – Completing Form T1000-1, Registered Journalism Organization Information Return (CRA) helpful for completing your annual filings. Here…
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…
It looks like Bill S-216, the Effective and Accountable Charities Act has passed the Senate and will now move to the House of Commons. It was formerly Bill S-222 but died when the Liberals called that very important 2021 Federal…
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. …
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…
Here are the CRA letters from a number of recent Canadian registered charity revocations. These letters from CRA cover many different grounds for de-registration. For a number of years, we have been providing the public with copies of CRA revocation…
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…