Canadian donations are far more than that which is claimed by taxpayers on their returns

Here is a list of the amounts of donations claimed by donors on their Canadian tax forms.  We have lamented, especially the 2006 year, when there was over $1.3 billion in abusive charity gifting tax schemes claimed that these were not real donations.   However, the bigger story is not those who claim amounts they are not entitled to – but the many Canadians who don’t claim any or all of their receipted donations.  Here is a list of the years and the amounts claimed by Canadian individuals on their income tax returns.  It goes from $4.2 billion in 1997 to $9.5 billion in 2017.  Just to provide some context in 2017 Canadian registered charities issued over $18 billion in official donation receipts, even though only $9.5 billion were claimed on individual tax returns.

Year	Donations claimed by Canadian Individuals on their tax filing (in 000)
1997	4,273,085
1998	4,641,468
1999	4,847,682
2000	5,438,672
2001	5,514,371
2002	5,847,068
2003	6,513,013
2004	6,922,616
2005	7,879,588
2006	8,529,976
2007	8,648,660
2008	8,189,280
2009	7,750,405
2010	8,253,210
2011	8,465,375
2012	8,308,585
2013	8,600,755
2014	8,797,115
2015	9,132,170
2016	8,888,325
2017	9,576,975

For more analysis on these numbers see Stats Can releases information on charitable donations and it is as meaningless as always