A rare potential conservation donation in Georgian Bay, Ontario, with a common potential environmental conservation tax barrier recently produced a successful gift and good news for taxpayers and land conservation organizations. The Georgian Bay Land Trust (GBLT) had an opportunity to protect an undeveloped island featuring undisturbed stands of White Pine and Red Oak, open […]
In an era of spending cuts, federal support for the Canada Council for the Arts has remained steadfast. In fact, in our Budget 2014 Update, we reported that the Government of Canada had made permanent the $25 million supplements to the Parliamentary appropriation, which in recent years has been $181 million1 (previously, it had been […]
The internet seems to constantly be evolving new uses, not to mention new additions to the lexicon. A popular concept recently has been ‘crowdfunding’, in which people bypass traditional methods of accessing funding for a project by using the internet to make a direct appeal to the public. This strategy has been put to use […]
ByArthur B.C. Drache, CM, QC Revocation is not the only way that charities can lose their registered status. The following comes from the web site of an organization which was a registered charity called Dying With Dignity: Dying with Dignity Canada (“DWD Canada”)has learned it will lose its registered charity status as the result of recent […]
A recent CRA ruling conveniently breaks down some of the rules about how a non-profit organization (NPO) may distribute its assets on dissolution. In this discussion, an NPO is specifically the kind of tax-exempt entity defined in paragraph 149(1)(l) of the Income Tax Act: one that is not a ‘charity’, but is organized and operated […]
Recent events in not-for-profit institutions and organizations have raised the critical issue of the procedures followed to resolve conflicts and situations where the interests of the institution need to be balanced with the rights of individuals. In the last several months we have seen a number of universities in Canada having to deal with high […]
By Adam Aptowitzer One of the unstated pillars of gift planning is to find ways of assuring a donor that his/her wishes will be carried out after death. Unfortunately, this can be a double-edged sword. While it may help convince a donor to give now the future needs of a charity can be difficult to […]
In anticipation of the Ontario Not-for-profit Corporations Act, 2010 (the “new Act”), many Ontario not-for-profit corporations established by letters patent under the Corporations Act (the “old Act”) have turned their minds to reviewing their by-laws. Some have even gone so far as to adopt new by-laws for compliance with the new Act. With this in […]
CRA recently released a new and updated Info Sheet (GI-037) on how the GST/HST applies to children’s camps operated by public sector bodies. This Info Sheet applies to all public sector bodies including governments, charities, non-profit organizations, municipalities, universities, public colleges, school authorities and hospital authorities operating overnight and day camps that involve the supervision […]
By Arthur B.C. Drache, CM, QC A recent ruling letter 1 from the CRA highlighted what for most is an obscure provisions of the Income Tax Act which related to gifts of ecological property. Section 207.31 of the Act imposes a tax on any charity, municipality in Canada or municipal or public body performing a function […]