Save the Date – October 15, 2014 – Blumbergs’ Charity Law Institute
On October 15, 2014 the Blumbergs Charity Law Institute will be held in Toronto.
Transparency
Charities have many stakeholders and it’s very important that a charity is transparent in its operations so that those who are affected by the work of the charity or who provide funding or donate to the charity understand the important work of the charity. We assist charities with different aspects of transparency including reviewing their T3010 filings, commenting on communications and websites, etc. If you wish to retain our law firm to assist with your transparency needs, you can contact us.
Resources that may be helpful include:
- Transparency in the Canadian Charitable Sector and the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return (Online Course)
- Blumbergs’ Pre-Budget Submission for the 2024 Canadian Federal Budget
- CRA’s Charities Listing vs. Blumbergs’ CharityData.ca 2023
- Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Canadian Charity Sector 2022
- Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Ontario Charity Sector 2022
- Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Alberta Charity Sector 2022
- Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Atlantic Provinces Charity Sector 2022
- Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the British Columbia Charity Sector 2022
- Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Quebec Charity Sector 2022
- Blumbergs Snapshots of Designations – Charitable Organizations, Public Foundations and Private Foundations 2021
- Canadian charities giving to Indigenous Charities and Qualified Donees – 2019
- RCAAA Transparency Project 2023 -Registered Canadian Amateur Athletic Association filings and their financial statements
- Corporations Canada getting serious about filings including non-filing of financial statements
- Corporations Canada dissolution program will be launched for CNCA corps that have not filed their Annual Return in 3 years
- Big improvements to transparency from Corporations Canada relating to CNCA corporations
- Key statistics on Canada’s charity and non-profit sector 2023
Blurb from Ontario Non-profit Network (ONN)
Here is a blurb from the ONN May E-bulletin: “Just how many nonprofits?! It's amazing the number of calls and emails we received about this first-ever list of nonprofits in Ontario. What we know: there are 59,605 registered not-for-profit…
Latest statistics on “abusive charity gifting tax schemes”
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…
Further T3010 descriptions of political activities by Canadian registered charities
The T3010 now asks additional questions about political activities. So far the CRA 2013 database has about 36,000 charities on it. There are in total approximately 86,000 Canadian registered charities who will file their T3010s. Therefore, less than half of the 2013…
IRFAN – Canada court documents shed light on different positions
Here are some documents from the Federal Court of Appeal file dealing with IRFAN- Canada. These documents were filed prior to IRFAN-Canada being placed on the Canadian government's list of “listed entities”. RESPONDENT’S MEMORANDUM OF FACT AND LAW APPELLANT’S MEMORANDUM…
Blumbergs’ List of Canada Corporations Act non-profits that need to continue to the CNCA
Here is the Blumbergs' List of Canada Corporations Act non-profits that need to continue to the CNCA. The federal government as part of its Open Data initiative provides a complete list of Federal corporations (for-profit and non-profit) in XML format. We…
Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Alberta Charity Sector 2012
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. …
World Giving Index ranks Canada #2
The Charities Aid Foundation in the UK has been publishing a World Giving Index for a number of years. It compares donations, volunteering and helping strangers in about 130 countries. Overall Canada comes in 2nd. Although such…
Blumbergs’ Charity Legal Checklist
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Some historical CRA letters when registered charity status is revoked – Part II
For a number of years we have been providing the public with copies of CRA revocation letters. These letters set out the CRA reasons for revocation of charitable status when CRA is alleging cause. This the second part of the…
Toronto Star covers CRA criminal investigation of charity tax shelters
In an article entitled “Canada Revenue Agency expands investigations of tax shelters”, Kevin Donovan of the Toronto Star discusses how “As many as 12 charity tax shelter promoters are under criminal investigation for schemes that saw donors contribute millions of…
Some nice comments on the recently disclosed list of Ontario non-profit corporations
I have received some very positive feedback on the disclosure of the list of Ontario non-profit corporations. Here is the list. On Friday, I saw this very nice email from the Ontario Nonprofit Network dealing with the list. Some…
Finance releases Legislative Proposals Notice of Ways and Means for February 11, 2014 budget
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…
List of Ontario Non-Profit Corporations finally revealed for the first time
Here is the list of the Ontario non-profit corporations under the Ontario Corporations Act. There are 59,605 Ontario corporations on the list. The list is 1084 pages long. Some of the Ontario corporations are active and some are inactive. We…
Time is not on your side – A Primer on the CNCA Continuance with Mark Blumberg
Federal non-profit corporations under the Canada Corporations Act (CCA) have until October 17 to continue/move over to the new CNCA. Here is a short webinar with 15 slides and takes 15 minutes on the CNCA continuance process. If you have…
Important update from the Charities Directorate’s Director General Cathy Hawara
The Charities Directorate just posted an important message which provides an update on the Charities Directorate activities. There is discussion of technology, guidances, CNCA, compliance activities but most importantly extensive discussion of political activities. Here is a link to the…
CRA “Non-Profit Organization Risk Identification Project Report” released
The CRA has just released its Non-Profit Organization Risk Identification Project Report. The relatively short report makes for interesting reading. It deals with the 80,000 or so non-profits that are not registered charities. This will have an impact on groups…
2014 Federal Budget and its Impact on Canadian Charities
Today Finance Minister Jim Flaherty introduced the Canadian Federal Budget 2014. The budget had a large number of provisions dealing with non-profits and charities. Here are some excerpts from the Federal Budget in one PDF document. Overall I was…
Who are the Canadian environmental charities?
We recently reviewed the T3010 information for 2012 to see how many charities identify themselves as doing work that relates to the environment. When we reviewed the T3010 about 1150 registered charities identify themselves as carrying on some work in…
G&M “Budget will include measures to expose links between charities and crime, Flaherty says”
In a Globe and Mail article entitled “Budget will include measures to expose links between charities and crime, Flaherty says” there is a discussion of potential items affecting charities in the 2014 Federal Budget set to be delivered on February…
Power and Politics with Evan Solomon deals with Canadian charities and political activities
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CRA clamping down on late T3010 returns and innaccurate information
If you search the CRA Charities Listing under revoked for cause charities it provides a list of Canadian charities that have been revoked for cause. I noticed recently that Assemblée de Dieu de Montreal-Nord has had its charity status revoked…
The Globe and Mail: ‘Forever’ falls out of fashion in charitable giving
The Globe and Mail recently had an article which discusses the concept of perpetual endowments as well as the use of donor advised funds and bequests. Read article > Here is also another article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy dealing with…
Which Canadian Registered Charities Received the Most Money from Municipal Governments in 2012?
We recently reviewed the T3010 information for 2012. We looked at government funding and specifically which Canadian registered charities received the most funds from municipal governments. Please review my caveats at the end about the reliability and usage of T3010…