As part of a number of business income tax measures intended to increase federal revenues, Budget 2022 proposes to eliminate the flow-through share regime for oil, gas, and coal activities. This may have an important impact on a significant donation tax shelter structure. Flow-through shares are tax-based financing incentives available to the oil and gas, […]
As expected, Budget 2022 brings a change to the rules around how much money registered charities are allowed to keep tucked away in their investment portfolios. There has long been a ‘disbursement quota’ that registered charities have to meet each year, a minimum spend calculated as part of the overall value of the charity’s assets. […]
By: Adam Aptowitzer Canadian charities proudly participate in important work around the world. Until now, the law requires that registered charities meet the ‘own activities’ test. On a practical level this means that they need to maintain control and direction over their funds and resources, and perhaps even more difficult, they need to keep records […]
Gifts of Cultural Property – Undoing Heffel As part of a package of measures intended to increase support for Canadian artists and cultural events, Budget 2019 included aimed at ending any lingering uncertainty around gifts of cultural property arising from the Federal Court of Justice’s decision in Heffel Gallery Limited v. The Attorney General of […]
Supporting Non-Profit Journalism By Arthur Drache As had been promised last year, the Government has moved on it undertaking to support non-profit journalism…a promise which had been viewed as contentious in some circles. But as we had predicted, the mechanism to implement this scheme was to create a new category of qualified donees. The key […]
Budget 2019: Housing strategies Budget 2019 was heavy on housing strategies. Among other things, it claims to modernize the Home Buyer’s Plan, which went 10 years without being increased or even adjusted for inflation. Budget 2019 also proposes to introduce the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive, and to start a $100 million fund for third-parties providing […]
Retail Therapy for Governments by: Adam Aptowitzer Pre-election budgets can be predictable in their spending, but in certain circumstances budgets are predictable because they spend. Budget 2019 falls into this unusual class of retail therapy because government revenues are pouring in yet this is a pre-election budget (and this is a Liberal government). Consequently, extra revenues […]
By: Adam Aptowitzer In our review of Budget 2018, we made some comments related to the concept of prescribed universities. Readers may recall that the Income Tax Act has, for many years, contained an allowance that certain foreign universities would be considered as qualified donees in Canada (akin to registered charities) if they met certain […]
By: Arthur Drache Now that budget leaks are not a sin punishable by political death, it has become the norm that a lot of carefully planted “hints” from the government side give us a preview of what is to come. This year the focus of the “leaks” was to address social issues, not the economy. […]
By: Adam Aptowitzer From the perspective of the charity and not-for-profit sector Budget 2018 was a relatively quiet affair dealing mostly with technical matters. However, in enacting changes to the regime which deals with donations to foreign universities the Budget has created an immediate issue for anybody that donates to these schools. What is unknown […]