September 30, 2011
Posted by Mark Blumberg on 09/30 |
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Canadian Charity Law
Here is an interesting report involving a UK charity with many lessons that can be learned by Canadian charities. The UK charity raised money for the Tsunami in 2004 and the Pakistan earthquake in 2005. In 2006 there were allegations in the media that the UK charity was involved with supporting terrorism. Charity Commission of UK and Wales spent a number of year investigating. “The Inquiry concluded that from the information examined, there was no evidence to indicate that the trustees diverted charitable funds for unlawful or non-charitable purposes. However, the Commission concluded that the trustees were unable to satisfactorily verify the end use of charitable funds in both Indonesia and Pakistan. It found that the measures taken to control, monitor and document the use of charitable funds by third parties overseas were insufficient. This prevented the charity’s trustees from being able to demonstrate that those funds had been used legitimately and in furtherance of the charity’s purposes.” “The report provides various lessons for the wider charity sector which trustees are encouraged to read. The lessons include the steps which trustees should take to put safeguards in place to mitigate the risk of charitable funds being used unlawfully. This is particularly important for charities working overseas and potentially working through partners. The report provides important advice on trustee responsibilities in financial management and the supervision of overseas activities, and the importance of charities having effective governance where all trustees are aware of their responsibilities in terms of setting polices, decision making, and ensuring the charity is run in line with its governing document and general law.”
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September 25, 2011
Here is an interesting article by Jamie Golombek entitled “A crazy tale of tax fraud”. Unfortunately these types of unsophisticated schemes cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. They are referred to as receipting fraud.
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September 23, 2011
Here is a very interesting document from the Max Bell Foundation which outlines some of the difficulties and opportunities for Canadian charities and NGOs to engage in more meaningful and effective public policy discussions.
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September 22, 2011
Here is an upcoming webinar “The role of the Not-for-Profit Board Treasurer”.
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September 20, 2011
Here is an archived webinar that was originally recorded on March 23, 2011 entitled “Dangerous Opinions – Legal and Ethical Issues with Legal Opinions on Charity Law and the Income Tax Act” with David Thompson from Scarfone Hawkins LLP. Mr. Thompson is a class action lawyer who has launched the Banyan Tree Foundation lawsuit and more recently the class action in the case of Redeemer University and its forgivable loan program.
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The Chronicle of Philanthropy has published a lengthy article by Caroline Preston entitled “Multiple Methods of Valuing Drugs Create an Unclear Picture of Aid Totals”. It covers a number of important issues for both Canadian and US charities who either receive pharmaceutical donations or who purchase pharmaceuticals to use in developing nations.
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September 18, 2011
In March 2011 a $6 million dollar claim was launched against Redeemer Foundation and Redeemer University College and their “Forgivable Loan Program”. CRA disallowed certain years of the program. We have covered the Redeemer University on this blog in its unsuccessful fight against CRA that went all the way to the Supreme Court. By my count this is the 5th class action lawsuit against a Canadian charity for issuing allegedly inappropriate official donation receipts. None of the allegations have yet been proven in court.
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I requested from CRA information about the status of Third Party Penalties (TPP). Some Third Party Penalties are applied to individuals (who are involved with charities) and some to the registered charity itself.
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September 17, 2011
Posted by Mark Blumberg on 09/17 |
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Canadian Charity Law
Here is a case comment on Maréchaux v. The Queen that recently appeared in Valuation Law Review.
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