March 31, 2012
The Globe and Mail published an article “New rules in budget ‘create more fear’ among politically active charities”.
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The Charities Directorate of the CRA has posted information on the Federal 2012 Budget.
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CRA has posted an FAQ on the Transparency and accountability provisions relating to registered charities in the 2012 budget.
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Here is the CRA FAQ on “Gifts to foreign charitable organizations”
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March 30, 2012
The 2012 Federal budget has an important piece on transparency namely “...to ensure that charities are accurately reporting in respect of all the activities in which they engage, the CRA will be granted the authority to suspend the tax-receipting privileges of a charity that provides inaccurate or incomplete information in its annual information return until the charity provides the required information.” This highlights the importance of charities not only filing the T3010 but being accurate and complete. If you don’t file your T3010 you will be revoked, but if you file an incomplete or innacurate T3010 you can be suspended. I have expressed concerns with some charities making ridiculous claims on their T3010 - that they have no fundraising costs is my favourite when they are organizing lots of expensive fundraising events, inflating gift-in-kind valuations etc. Well now just such a filing can get the charity in trouble. This follows the recent US IRS example where a charity was penalized for filing an inflated valuation of gifts in kind.
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Some senators have been complaining about environmental groups outside Canada being involved with public policy and political discussions in Canada. I have written about the disclosure of foreign funding by Canadian charities at “So how much do Canadian charities receive from foreign sources according to the T3010 Returns?” . But I want to point out that in fact the US has significant requirements in terms of disclosure with its Form 990. Below is a copy of the TIDES US Form 990 to serve as an illustration. It is 181 pages long and provides detailed information on the work of Tides US. Far from there being no transparency about US funding of Canadian groups - there is tremendous transparency in the US 990 Return. The IRS has spent a considerable amount of time revising its form 990 and now it includes a large amount of information that Canadian charities don’t have to disclose.
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March 29, 2012
On March 29, 2012 Finance Minister Jim Flaherty released the Federal Budget at approximately 4PM. There are about 10 pages of information dealing with charities in the almost 500 page document. Here are the pieces of the 2012 Canadian Federal Budget that affect the Canadian charitable sector.
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Here is the Blumbergs’ Canadian Charity Law List - March 2012
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March 27, 2012
As noted before the Canada Revenue Agency Charities Directorate has revoked the registration of Escarpment Biosphere Foundation Inc. (http://www.globalphilanthropy.ca/index.php/blog/comments/the_canada_revenue_agency_revokes_the_registration_of_escarpment_biosphere/) as a charity for participating in the Canadian Humanitarian Trust tax shelter gifting arrangement (Donation Program). Here is detailed information from the CRA on the involvement of the Escarpment Biosphere Foundation Inc in an abusive charity gifting tax schemes. The letters cover topics such as fair market value, pharmaceutical donations, the revocation of registered charities who act in concert with each other to unduly delay expenditures on charitable activities, limitations on the charitable goods policy and direction and control.
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March 23, 2012
Here are the actual letters from the Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency to Little League Baseball Canada.
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