The federal court of appeal recently dismissed an appeal by Jaamiah Al Uloom Al Islamiyyah Ontario, a Canadian registered charity that was revoked by CRA for non-compliance. CRA had conducted an audit of the charity and found that the charity was not keeping…
The Department of Finance has requested pre-budget submission. Here is the Blumbergs' Pre-Budget Submission to the Standing Committee on Finance and the Minister of Finance for the 2016 Federal budget. The Submission deals with transparency in the non-profit and charity sector…
Corporations Canada recently released a notice on the public disclosure requirements relating to the corporate information that they collect as part of the services they provide for corporations. The notice from Corporations Canada is a helpful reminder that specific information relating…
The CRA will be introducing a new reporting requirement for registered charities. It is a short question relating to partnership holdings. A charity should print the page and submit it with the T3010 filing. Next year (2016 fiscal year)…
Diane Lebouthillier, the new Minister of National Revenue has announced that the 2012 Conservative government initiative to audit more registered charities on the issue of political activities will be wound down. There is a lot in the release and I…
Here is a brief article on “Which Canadian charities spent the most outside of Canada in 2013?”
Here is a note on “Which are the largest Canadian registered charities by assets – 2013“
The Charity Commission of England and Wales just released a report entitled Campaigning and political issues arising in the run-up to the 2015 General Election. When they put it out they probably did not think that it is such a special…
The Conservative loss in the 2015 Federal election and the Liberal majority government will have some impact on the Canadian charity sector. Here is my article What does the 2015 Federal election mean for Canadian charities?
We have prepared as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project this Snapshot on Political Activities in the Canadian Charity Sector 2013. The Snapshot on Political Activities in the Canadian Charity Sector 2013 will be helpful to those who are interested in…
Here are the CRA letters from a number of recent Canadian registered charity revocations, annulments and penalties. These letters from CRA cover many different grounds for de-registration or the imposition of penalties. For a number of years we have been…
I was delighted to read a publication “Donor Beware: Investigation into the sufficiency of the Canada Revenue Agency’s warnings about questionable tax shelter schemes”. The special report was prepared in December 2013 by J. Paul Dubé, the Taxpayers’ Ombudsman. The…
About 2.7 million Canadians work for Canadian registered charities. They earn approximately $122 billion per year. This article takes data from the CRA’s T3010 Registered Charity Information Return and shows the charities that spend the most on employment compensation. Download…
For the 86,000 Canadian registered charities who file their T3010 Registered Charity Information Return every year and the 4500 or so organizations that apply for registered charity status every year, the introduction over the next few years of electronic filing…
Registered Charities every year must file the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return. It is supposed to be filed within 6 months of the fiscal year end for each charity. Here are excerpts from the comments by Cathy Hawara, Director General of…
As part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project we have requested from the CRA copies of the Registered Canadian amateur athletic associations (RCAAAs) T2052 and financial statements for each of the RCAAAs. None of this information is provided on the…
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has released a report entitled Countering the Terrorist Threat In Canada. The report provides 25 recommendations. Some of the recommendations are common sense and others are controversial or questionable. I was a…
On July 15, 2015 Mark Blumberg will be delivering a 2 hour presentation entitled “Top 20 Charity Law Issues for Canadian Registered Charities” in Ottawa. The presentation is complimentary but if you are interested in attending you should register here. Here…
'The Deceptive Marketing Practices Digest' was recently released by the Competition Bureau. The Bureau is committed to enhancing transparency and communication so they are providing this publication which contains information on the relevant provisions of the Competition Act relating to advertising. …
There have been a large number of articles discussing the transparency of the Clinton Foundation and gaps or mistakes in their filings. Here is an article from the New York Times, the Washington Post and Bloomberg News. Here is a response…
We have blogged about the CRA Program Update 2015 separately but wanted to focus here on what the update provides in terms of information on the political activity audits of CRA's Charities Directorate. CRA should be commended for publishing a…
We have just released the Blumbergs' Snapshot of the Canadian Charity Sector 2013 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project. The database covers about 83,000 of the 86,000 registered charities in Canada that had filed their T3010 and were processed…
The Charities Directorate of CRA has released the Charity Program Update 2015. We will discuss the update in this note, except for the parts dealing with political activities which we will discuss here. The Charity Program Update 2015 provides some interesting…
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…