I frequently receive e-mails from people, or relatives of people, who have been involved in an abusive charity gifting tax shelter. I thought I would share one of those e-mails and also my response. Abusive charity tax shelters – it…
CRA has updated the form for Canadian registered charities to file with CRA if the charity has made errors in its T3010 Registered Charity Information Return and related forms. The form can be found at: It is important that…
Not all public appeals are from registered charities. Sometimes these appeals are spontaneous in response to a disaster or tragedy. The Uniform Law Commission of Canada has circulated a consultation paper on the topic and the ULCC tries to encourage…
This press release from CRA reminds donors that they can use CRA’s database of charities to check whether a charity is registered and also that CRA deregisters charities who are seriously non-compliant. News release Protecting the money you give…
The Honourable Keith Ashfield, Minister of National Revenue, announced today contribution funding for seven new projects dealing with fundraising, transparency and false receipting under the Charities Partnership and Outreach Program (CPOP) of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). One of the…
Here is an article I wrote for Charity Village entitled “Is it legal and ethical to take over a dormant Canadian charity? ”
Many people have quite rightly asked “why does it take so long for a charity tax shelter scheme to ever make it to court?”. “Why does a 2001 donation only get to court in 2010?”. For example, we recently had…
This CRA letter discusses the clergy residence deduction and “Is an Executive Director of a charitable organization eligible for a clergy residence deduction pursuant to paragraph 8(1)(c) of the Act.” LANGIND E DOCNUM 2010-0363501E5 AUTHOR Srikanth, Vyjayanthi DESCKEY 25 RATEKEY…
Another class action lawsuit has been launched in Canada with respect to a charity donation tax shelter arrangement. The class action law suit concerns Donations Canada Charitable Donation program which was a program marketed by Parklane Financial Group Limited. According…
The CRA revoked the registered status of the Canadian Lacrosse Association “For issuing more than $60.7 million in donation receipts for abusive transactions arising from its role as a participant in tax shelter arrangements that, in the opinion of the…
CRA just revised its “Goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) checklist for charities”. The checklist is located at: The text of the checklist is below: Goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) checklist for charities Are you HST…
The Charities Directorate has added some new web pages about the process of a revoked charity re-registering for charitable status. The process for re-registering a charity can be far more difficult than setting up a new charity and it is…
Here is an article by FLA Group entitled “Legacy Marketing Overview March 2010” The article has some interesting statistics and thoughts on the importance of encouraging bequest giving. I agree that Canadian charities do not spend enough time doing this…
The CRA recently discussed “Whether in the particular circumstances, financial assistance provided by an employer to its employees’ extended families in the XXXXX who were directly affected by the hurricanes and typhoons in XXXXX, would be taxable to the employees.” …
Members of a board of directors of a charity should not be compensated for their work. In Ontario, generally directors of charities are not entitled to compensation for serving on the board of a charity. In fact, by being a…
Here is a short article Leaving a Bequest to a Canadian Charity – using a lawyer to avoid common legal problems with bequests – June 2010, which discusses the value of using an estate lawyer who is knowledgeable about bequests.
This CRA Charities Connection focuses on payroll and income tax. Payroll, deduction and remittances are important as directors of charities can be held personally liable for failure to remit the amounts to the CRA. You can read the Charities Connection…
Cathy Hawara, Acting Director General of the Charities Directorate, delivered a presentation on April 30, 2010 and during that presentation she provided some interesting statistics on registered charities. I always knew that the Federal and Provincial governments are the largest…
Here are 4 CRA webcasts namely 1) Financial Statements and Books and Records, 2) Gifting and receipting, 3) Payroll 4) T3010B: Line by Line Review. They are available at:
Imagine Canada has released Bill C-470 Twelve Frequently Asked Questions and Bill C-470 Supplementary Questions and Answers. Both are good documents and worth reading. Bill C-470 TWELVE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Bill C-470 SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS As…
In June 2010 CRA will do webinars on the T3010B : Line by Line Review and the Fundraising Guidance – here is the schedule
Here are some archived webinars on charity compliance issues for Canadian registered charities. These webinars which are now archived were prepared as part of the Charity Law Information Program (CLIP). They are available for free. CLIP is supported by a…
Here is a list from the US IRS database of organizations with US 501(C)(3) charitable type status that are located in Canada. You can search Publication 78, Cumulative List of Organizations described in Section 170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code…
Here is the “Official Notice of Fee Proposal For Services under the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act”. This notice which is required under the User Fee Act gives the public and idea of what fees are proposed for the CNCA –…