The Federal Court of Appeal has decisively dismissed the Kossow appeal. Kossow dealt with what CRA would term an “abusive charity gifting tax scheme”. Kossow is the second major case dealing with these schemes, the first one being Marechaux. The…
John Montague has written an article entitled “The Law and Financial Transparency in Churches: Reconsidering the Form 990 Exemptions” in the Cardozo Law Review. In the US, churches don’t have to file the Form 990 annual return, however, in Canada…
Industry released today draft regulations to Canada’s Anti-spam Legislation (CASL) which will now come into effect on July 1, 2014. An important exclusion that will be welcomed by registered charities is that the Act does not apply to an electronic…
The CRA put a reminder on their website today “Does your organization make its resources available to, or work with a municipal or public body performing a function of government in Canada, such as a First Nation? The December 31,…
I just reviewed the latest T3010 data disk for 2013 and here are the descriptions of activities for political activities by Canadian charities. This is only based on 7900 of the approximately 86,000 charities. Description Wrote less than 5 letters…
In this decision, Ms. Sowah appealed the Minister of National Revenue’s assessment of her 2006 taxation year in which her charitable donation claim was denied. The court found that the charitable receipts issued by the charity did not contain all…
In this decision, a taxpayer appealed the Minister of National Revenue’s denial of his claim for a charitable donation in 2009. The amount he claimed represented his estimate of the fair market value of the use by a registered charity…
The Humanitarian Coalition has launched an appeal for Typhoon Haiyan which has killed many people in the Philippines and left many homeless. “The Humanitarian Coalition is a joint appeal mechanism. It is comprised of CARE Canada, Oxfam Canada, Oxfam-Québec, Plan…
The Ontario Government has passed “Bill 36 – An Act to enact the Local Food Act, 2013 and to amend the Taxation Act, 2007 to provide for a tax credit to farmers for donating certain agricultural products that they have…
Saskatchewan has introduced a bill that would regulate informal public appeals. This will cover situations like when a fire destroys a family home and funds are raised to help the family and what to do if there are excess funds…
We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2011 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project. We provided an overview of the whole charity sector in the Blumbergs’ Charity Sector Snapshot 2011. We have taken a…
We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2011 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project. We provided an overview of the whole charity sector in the Blumbergs’ Charity Sector Snapshot 2011. We have taken a…
The Finance Committee of the House of Commons has been holding hearings. A number of charities have presented. Many charities have sent in submissions. Here is a link to the Minutes of Proceedings: http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=6292712&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=41&Ses=2 “MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS Meeting No.…
The Accounting Standards Board and Public Sector Accounting Board are asking for comments by December 15, 2013 on some changes to the principles affecting non-profit accounting. The document is entitled “Improvements to Not-for-Profit Standards (Applicable to Private and Public Sector…
The Muttart Foundation has released the 2013 edition of its “Talking About Charities”. It updates its last similar opinion poll from 5 years ago. Here is a link to the various responses and reports: Here is the summary: …
At the website of the Toronto class action law firm Paliare Roland they have a note that “On Friday, October 18, 2013, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice approved the settlements with the Law Firm Defendants (including Edwin C. Harris…
Here is an interesting series of letters from CRA to the Corban Foundation in the 1990s relating its revocation as a registered charity. It deals with the meaning of a gift, and various programs to provide tuition assistance to those…
Peter Braid on October 23, 2013 withdrew his bill entitled “An Act respecting a National Charities Week and to amend the Income Tax Act (charitable and other gifts)”. We welcome the withdrawal of the private members’ bill as we, and…
Here is an interesting series of letters from CRA to the Corban Foundation in the 1990s relating its revocation as a registered charity. It deals with the meaning of a gift, and various programs to provide tuition assistance to those…
Presentation to the Schulich School of Business, York University on Structures for Social Enterprise I enjoyed giving a presentation tonight to an MBA class at Schulich School of Business at York University on Structures for Social Enterprise. Great students and…
I enjoyed giving a presentation tonight to an MBA class at Schulich School of Business at York University on Structures for Social Enterprise. Great students and lots of questions. Here is a copy of my presentation Structures for Social Enterprise.
I am looking at a number of old audit letters from CRA. In one of the audit letters it discusses the CRA’s views on director compensation. We have previously discussed this issue on our blog. Here are some paragraphs from…
Occasionally a Canadian registered charity will want to change its fiscal year end. Sometimes it is because you want to align with another charity or funder. Sometimes you just find that there are better or worse times to be involved…
There was a very nice article in the Vancouver Sun on Kevin McCort, the new CEO of the Vancouver Foundation. The Vancouver Foundation is the largest of the community foundations in Canada. Here is the text of the article: …