March 15, 2010
Posted by Mark Blumberg on 03/15 |
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Canadian Charity Law
It was a pleasure having Marie-Luise Ahlendorf of Transparency International Global Programmes presenting this report and handbook at the recent Charity Law Information Program conference in Toronto. The handbook is easy to read and “compiles best practice from the field, including ways to track resources, confront extortion and detect aid diversion.” Preventing the diversion of humanitarian assistance should only be a concern of those who care whether beneficiaries actually receive the aid! http://www.transparency.org/content/download/49759/795776/Humanitarian_Handbook_cd_version.pdf
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The 2010 Canadian Federal budget had some changes to the Income Tax Act to prevent transactions by registered Canadian charities that “may reasonably be considered that a purpose of the transaction was to avoid or delay unduly the expenditure of amounts on charitable activities”.
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Posted by Mark Blumberg on 03/15 |
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These resources may be of interest to those who wish to combat fraud in the charitable sector or targetting charities.
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March 11, 2010
Here is a copy of an article I wrote for the newsletter “Charitable Thoughts” of the Ontario Bar Association Charity and Not-for-Profit Law Section
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March 10, 2010
Posted by Mark Blumberg on 03/10 |
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Over the next few years there may be changes to the accounting standards for non-profit organizations in Canada. This piece entitled Changes to Accounting Standards for Not-for-Profit Organizations from the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) reminds those who are interested that certain exposure drafts were released March 3, 2010 by the Accounting Standards Board and the Public Sector Accounting Board. The public can comment on those drafts until July 15, 2010.
March 08, 2010
Posted by Mark Blumberg on 03/08 |
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Canadian Charity Law
The Canadian government recently blacklisted a Somali group called al-Shabab for involvement with terrorism. Canadian charities and individuals must take care not to support directly or indirectly any groups that are on Canada’s terrorism watch list. Here is an article that I recently wrote on “Canadian Charities and Terrorism - Preventing Abuse of your favourite charity” - http://www.capacitybuilders.ca/files/resources/Canadian_Charities_and_Terrorism_-_Preventing_Abuse_of_Your_Favourite_Charity_1262115622.pdf
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March 04, 2010
The Canadian federal government announced disbursement quota reform in the 2010 Budget to remove the 80/20 expenditure requirement for registered Canadian charities. For many charities this will have no real impact - they were handily satisfying their disbursement quota requirements and for those that were not (except in extreme cases) CRA was not using the DQ to revoke charitable status. As one observer noted on the changes “No more 80/20 ordinary gift. No more enduring property, including 10 year gifts. No more specified gifts. No more intercharity transfer rules based on original DQ designation. Just a simple obligation to use the equivalent of 3.5% based on previous 24 month market average for charitable purposes. ... The 3.5% obligation doesn’t kick in for charitable organizations until there is $100k in assets, while for foundations it stays at $25k.” We will probably have a revised T3010 at some point to reflect these changes and one can expect with the simpler formula that in the future CRA will more vigorously enforce the DQ provisions as this will be easier to understand. There is no cost associated with this change and a number of other proposals to increase tax incentives from some organizations were not included in the budget, which makes sense in light of the difficult fiscal situation in addition to other reasons.
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The CRA has just announced that “The Charities Directorate is now displaying T3010 returns for revoked charities, and detail pages for annulled charities in the Charities Listings.”
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March 02, 2010
This letter from CRA is a reminder that when leaving funds to a registered charity under a will the drafting is important.
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