During this year’s long-haul federal election campaign, the rules about charities’ involvement in political activities have been tested left and right. A major challenge to the interpretation of the rules came from the Green Party, who fought back against the exclusion of their leader, Elizabeth May, from the Munk leaders’ debate on September 28. This […]
With a federal election coming up on October 19th and the unusually-long campaign period in full swing, the CRA has issued a reminder to registered charities about the restrictions on political activities. The main campaign period take-away is that partisan political activities are outright prohibited. The only political activities that charities can engage in to […]
On August 17, 2015 the Federal Court of Appeal released their decision in Humane Society of Canada for the Protection of Animals and the Environment v Minister of National Revenue (2015 FCA 178) which confirmed CRA’s decision to issue a Notice of Intention to Revoke (“NIR”) the organization’s charitable status for failure to devote all […]
By Adam Aptowitzer In its last annual budget, the Federal Government announced that proceeds from the sale of private company shares and real estate would be free from tax if donated to charity. That is pretty much all they said on the subject. Readers of our budget column will recall that we were somewhat guarded […]
Government contracts and funding agreements can be golden eggs in the non-profit sector, promising a tempting level of income stability for NPOs and charities. Because of the public source of these funds, NPOs may have some nebulous ideas about the government being duty-bound to behave fairly or reasonably towards them. These NPOs may be surprised […]
By Arthur B.C. Drache, CM, QC We are getting more and more questions these days from museums, galleries and performing arts organizations[1] about what amount they can issue receipt for when they confer some benefit on donors? In most cases we find that the organizations err on the side of conservatism. We have also found that […]
By Arthur B.C. Drache, CM, QC Anybody who works within the charitable world will be aware that the “relief of poverty” is one of the classic heads of charity and there are myriad cases which attempt to determine who is “poor”. But the issue can also arise very indirectly…which is what happened in a recent municipal […]
Anyone involved with a Canadian charity that operates internationally or sends funds abroad is probably intimately familiar with the considerable restrictions in this area. As with much of the law surrounding charities in Canada, the foreign activities rules are made up a small nucleus of actual statute law surrounded by an ever-growing outcropping of CRA […]
In a series of articles here and here we discussed the importance of protecting a charity’s assets and organizing its activities to achieve maximum efficiency in operations and effectiveness in engaging with donors and volunteers. Long established charitable organizations sometimes find that they have a number of entities carrying on various roles in their overall […]
By Adam Aptowitzer As Counsel for Ms. Guindon in her case with the Minister of National Revenue we have kept our readers abreast of developments as the appeal wended its way to the Supreme Court of Canada. On July 31st, 2015 the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the matter thus ending the appeal for […]