Blumbergs Professional Corporation is involved with many charity applications each year. In this series, CRA Charity Application Graveyard, we aim to provide groups considering charitable status applications with insights into common issues the CRA encounters, based on our analysis of access to information documents, CRA letters, and the CRA’s Charities and Giving website. These reasons given in the Charity Application Graveyard are not presented in order of importance.
CRA identifies the following issue:
Promotion of multiculturalism
The Canadian courts have in only a few cases considered the issue of whether the promotion of multiculturalism is a charitable purpose at law. As a result, the legal meaning of the term is not well-defined. The promotion of multiculturalism does not fall within any of the recognized categories of charity. In addition, the promotion of multiculturalism might include non-charitable purposes and activities, such as the promotion of a particular culture. Therefore, applicants whose purposes include the promotion of multiculturalism are generally not eligible for charitable registration.
Not everything is charitable, and sometimes, for some groups, depending on what they want to accomplish and what their sources of revenue are, it may not even be desirable to be a registered charity. One thing is clear – CRA spends a lot of time and resources reviewing charity applications, and unless your application meets all of the charity law requirements under the Income Tax Act and common law, they will not be able to register your organization as a charity.
If you require assistance with your charity application, you may be able to retain our law firm, and you can contact us here. It is best to contact us before establishing the entity and making an application to CRA, as this will minimize costs, changes and delays.