It is good to see that in 2009 the problem of abusive charity gifting tax shelters has been further reduced.  Here are the statistics from CRA:

2009:

Number of “Donors”/Investors: 10,813 donors
Amount of “donations”: $ 285,946,839
Number of schemes: 7

2008:
Number of “Donors”/Investors: 17,301 donors;
Amount of “donations” $484,150,482
Number of schemes: 9

It is interesting to note that the value of the claims has been reduced from 484m to 285m. As there are almost the same number of investors it means that each is investing less i.e. these are probably people with less income to shield. More sophisticated and well advised taxpayers have been staying away from these schemes because they don’t work. As well, many less sophisticated investors have already been burnt on previous investments and if not ‘once burnt, twice shy’ then after you have been burnt a couple of times these schemes don’t look so good.