Named in The Canadian Legal Lexpert® Directory* for excellence in Charity Law, Estates & Tax Planning
Arthur Drache C.M., Q.C. , is best known in Canada for the more than 1,600 articles he wrote for the Financial Post over more than thirty years for which he won a National Business Writing Award.
He has served as legal counsel to the House of Commons Committee on Communications and Culture, primarily on matters relating to the taxation of the arts and artists and to the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce. He has appeared as counsel in cases before the Tax Court of Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada. As Chief, Personal Income Tax for the federal Department of Finance in the early 1970s, he wrote much of the tax law applicable to charities.
Among tax professionals, he is best known as the editor of the Canadian Taxpayer, a newsletter which first appeared in 1979 and which appears twice a month. He has also written, contributed to or co-authored twelve other books, aimed both at professional and lay readers and has contributed to many other scholarly and popular publications.
Besides being recognized as having particular expertise in the area of personal and small business tax planning, Arthur is acknowledged as a specialist in the tax treatment of charities and non-profit organizations and in relation to all aspects of taxation of the arts and artists. For many years he chaired the Legal Affairs and Management Symposium sponsored by the Canadian Museums Association. His clientele includes arts groups representing almost all mediums. He has performed work for half a dozen federal government departments.
He is chair of the Museums Foundation of Canada, treasurer of the Canadian Writers’ Trust and a former board member and secretary of the Canadian Conference of the Arts. He was also chair of the International Centre for Not-for Profit law, an international NGO headquartered in Washington, D.C.
He is the author of the monthly newsletter, The Not-For-Profit News, Canadian Taxation of Charities and Donations, The Charity and Not-For Profit Sourcebook and co-author of No-Share Capital Corporations. He is one of the founding members of the Charity and Non-Profit law section of the Canadian Bar Association and is on the executive of that group.
He has travelled widely in the course of giving lectures and seminars both to professional and lay audiences, having spoken in every province of Canada as well as abroad. He originally comes from Winnipeg and was educated in Manitoba, Ontario and in the United States.
In May 2001 Mr. Drache was awarded the John Hodgson Award by the Ontario Bar Association and also received the Special Award of Merit from Ottawa-Carleton Association of Fundraising Professionals in 1998. He was awarded the Order of Canada in 2004.
Mr. Drache received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in April of 2012 and is the recipient of the Canadian Bar Association’s Jane Burke Robertson Award of Excellence in Charity and Not for Profit Law in May 2015.
Arthur Drache can be reached at adrache@drache.ca.