A recent Federal Court of Appeal case Church of Atheism of Central Canada v. Canada (National Revenue) deals with a group promoting atheism who applied for registered charity status, CRA rejected the application, the group appealed to the FCA and…
Although it is not news many Canadian charities would be surprised that CRA is not prepared to disclose which charities received funds from countries listed as supporters of terrorism, namely Syria and Iran. This is perhaps not the most important…
If you have ever wondered what are some of the most common findings CRA has when it audits charities well here is the “Top Five Audit Issues“: Incorrect issuance of donation receipts. Incorrect allocations on the T3010. Books and records…
It is now the giving season. We will hear lots from charities on Giving Tuesday and perhaps you will be inundated with too many emails on Giving Tuesday from charities that you rarely hear from! The media will be full…
Statistics Canada every year releases a little report on “Charitable donors“. The numbers are very detailed and very specific – but unfortunately, they are also close to meaningless. I will let others, and there will be many, discuss the increases…
Here is a list of the amounts of donations claimed by donors on their Canadian tax forms. We have lamented, especially the 2006 year, when there was over $1.3 billion in abusive charity gifting tax schemes claimed that these were…
There is a list called “foreign charities that have received a gift from Her Majesty in right of Canada”. As the name suggests a group that gets a “gift” from the Federal government can apply to CRA to be on…
I know the title sounds a little harsh but I recently checked a list that the CRA maintains of municipalities that are “qualified donees” or groups that are able to issue official donation receipts and yes CRA has “terminated” some municipalities like…
There are a couple of important qualified donee categories that have increased in size – first the “List of municipal or public bodies performing a function of government in Canada registered as qualified donees” which is largely aboriginal bands and…
The CRA has released recently the 2019 version C of its T3010 Registered Charity Information Return. The major changes deal with replacing political activities with “public policy dialogue and development activities” (PPDDAs). As a result of Finance’s 2018 changes CRA no…
Since February 2019 there has not been any update from the Ontario government about ONCA coming into force. As we have noted before the Ontario government is no longer referring to ONCA coming into force in early 2020. A few months…
I was recently on a VITREO podcast entitled Episode 31: The Impact of the Community Foundation – How They Have Become Power Players in Philanthropy and What it Means for the Sector. It dealt with community foundations, donor-advised funds and perpetual…
There was a recent Tax Court of Canada (“TCC”) case Miller v. The Queen, 2019 TCC 204. It is not an important or exciting case – it deals with a charity tax scheme. A person buys some multimedia courseware for $7000…
Here is an Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) request made of Global Affairs Canada in 2018 relating to “List of all Canadian non-profit organization (NGOs) and charities that applied for international development funding and were successful from Jan 1, 2011…
We have recently launched another online course entitled “Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) In Canada: Understanding this important and often misunderstood philanthropic vehicle? It is 1.5 hours long and covers a number of topics relating to donor-advised funds or DAFs.
Press Progress has written an article entitled Right-Wing Media Outlet Accredited For Leaders’ Debate is Also Registered as a Charity for Immigrants. It is worth reading. It is nice to see more media outlets using the T3010 information and also www.CharityData.ca as well…
CRA is now sending out reminders to registered charities to file their T3010s on time. These reminders are going out roughly 3 months before the charity’s T3010 due date. Here is a redacted copy of the notice. These reminders are…
We are pleased to launch our Blumbergs Canadian Charity Sector Snapshot 2017 with information on the Canadian registered charity sector for 2017. 2017 is the last year that there is currently full data available.
Here are some documents relating to social finance, social investments and social enterprise that have been requested by various people through the Canadian access to information system from the Canadian Federal Government. These documents are probably of interest to some…
The current Ontario Conservative Government seems to have adopted the Ontario Liberal party’s approach to ONCA. It is something like ‘people of Ontario you have no right to know what is happening to the corporate legislation that affects over 50,000…
There is an interesting letter from CRA dealing with “Whether an employer's contribution to an employee's crowdfunding campaign raising funds to help with additional costs for caring for their child, who was born with XXXXXXXXXX, is a taxable benefit.” The…
I have been asking the Ontario government for months for an update on whether ONCA is coming into force and when. On September 25, 2019 I received a short note from the Policy and Business Law Unit of the Ministry of Government…
Join us on Monday October 7, 2019 in Toronto for the 8th Annual Blumbergs' Canadian Charity Law Institute. We will be featuring a number of speakers covering different legal and compliance issues affecting Canadian charities and non-profits. It will be a full…
CRA is encouraging non-profits that want to apply to become registered charities to use their new CHAMP system for the application process. They recently made an announcement that they will still however accept paper applications using the old Form T2050…