A recent ruling from the CRA dealing with the “Loanback Provisions” of the Income Tax Act as they affect charities will be of some interest. The ruling was in response to a written request for CRA views regarding the application of the loanback provisions found in subsection 118.1(16) of the Income Tax Act to two […]
Most organizations that are pursuing charitable status are incorporated. Part of the requirement for achieving such status is that the corporation is organized to pursue charitable purposes. But that by itself is not enough for charitable registration and so prospective charities must apply to the CRA for registration. The question then arises about the tax […]
Over the past several years, the Charities Directorate has been enthusiastically anticipating some much-needed technological modernizations to its operations. On June 1, 2019, the Directorate finally rolled out online applications for charitable registration (Form T2050) and the annual charity returns (Form T3010), which had previously been paper-only. The new automated system, dubbed CHAMP, shows promise […]
Those with long memories in the charity sector will recall that the voluntary sector initiative of the 1990’s promoted the introduction of sanctions for offences that were less than revocation. It also advocated that appeals of these sanctions be heard by the Tax Court, and hoped that before long a body of case law would […]
We have written before about the risks posed to Canadian charities from the international movement of financial institutions towards “de-risking”. De-risking is the response of these institutions to the movement by the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) and its related partner entities to force financial institutions to aid in the fight against money laundering and […]
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the Governor General, Julie Payette, the morning of Wednesday, September 11th, 2019 to have the writs issued for the federal election, thus beginning the election period.[1] This came in the window between the deadline on Sunday, September 14 and Manitoba’s early Election Day on September 10th. Now that the writs […]
The Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency has restarted their in-person educational program for the charitable sector after a being cancelled in 2013 under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The first Charities Information Session was held in Ottawa the morning of May 28th, 2019. We audited the first class to get a feel for whether […]
At the National Convention of STEP held in Toronto in June of this year, there was a roundtable with the CRA and one of the questions will have importance to some planners with regard to donations for an alter ego trust to a charity. This is always a highly technical issue and we are reproducing […]
On Thursday, June 20, 2019, the Senate Special Committee on the Charitable Sector, which was established to review the impact of the voluntary sector in Canada and the federal and provincial laws and policies governing charities and non-profit organizations, released its report, Catalyst for Change: A Roadmap to a Stronger Charitable Sector (hereinafter the “Report”). […]
As lawyers, we are often contacted when a dispute arises amongst members of an association. Inevitably, the dispute will devolve into a review of the legality of the actions of one or both sides. Given that most associations are corporations, there are, in fact, laws which must be followed in order that the authority of […]