April 14, 2008

Banyan Tree Foundation, law firm Fraser Milner Casgrain sued for $55m in class action lawsuit

The law firm of Scarfone Hawkins LLP in Hamilton has recently brought a class action lawsuit against a number of parties for their involvement with the Banyan Tree Foundation including the law firm of Fraser Milner Casgrain.  It will be interesting to see how this case turns out.  I predict that there will be other cases against other law firms that have been involved with preparing opinion letters for transactions that CRA considers to be “shams”.  The allegations in the statement of claim have yet to be proved in court. 

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April 03, 2008

Has the regulation of Canadian charities operating outside of Canada become increasingly burdensome?

I often read commentators talking about the ‘increased burden’ placed by Canada Revenue Agency on Canadian charities operating abroad or the ‘increasingly complicated’ administrative rules.  I then scratch my head and wonder what increased burden and what increased rules?  The CRA has not modified RC4106 since 2000 (almost 8 years)  and since the publication of that document the CRA has in fact provided greater leeway to registered Canadian charities in operating abroad for example charities that are umbrella organizations.  The CRA has also provided clarifications in newsletters on various issues that they have been asked about.  The CRA has also made far greater efforts to educate charities about compliance issues for Canadian charities operating abroad including through a recent educational partnership with certain charities.

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April 01, 2008

Fundraising Policy for Canadian Registered Charities by CRA

Here is my article which discusses the Consultation on Proposed Policy on Fundraising by Canadian Registered Charities (RC4456-e).

Here is a link to http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/charities/consultations/fundraising-e.html which is the CRA’s “Consultation on proposed policy on fundraising by Registered Charities.”  This is a 6 page document and apparently there will be another document forthcoming that is about 40 pages in length that will add to the overview document.

Here is a copy of a presentation on April 1, 2008 by Neil Cochrane and Peter Broder of the Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency to the Ontario Bar Association entitled CRA Fundraising Policy Overview. 

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