By Adam Aptowitzer The structure of the Income Tax Act is such that if one earns a dollar, one pays taxes on the dollar. If one earns a dollar and gives away the dollar to charity then, in days gone by, the individual is really out of pocket only the after tax amount that they would have […]
Budget 2022 Eliminates Certain Types of Flow-Through Shares
By: Karen Cooper 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 […]
Budget 2022 Dips into Charities’ Larger Investments
By: Alexandra Tzannidakis 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 […]
Control and Direction is Out! Expenditure Test is in!
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 […]
Paying for the Privilege of Giving Away Money!
The structure of the Income Tax Act is such that if one earns a dollar, one pays taxes on the dollar. If one earns a dollar and gives away the dollar to charity then, in days gone by, the individual is really out of pocket only the after tax amount that they would have otherwise […]
The Case of the Non-Qualifying Sale of the Non-Qualifying Securities
Not everyone understands what it is that lawyers do or the technicalities that can sometimes impose themselves on donations to charities. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes the case of a donation gone wrong to illustrate some of the complexities that can accompany large donations. Once such instance recently arose in the Tax Court in the case […]
Long Wait for new Ontario Not-for-Profit Corporations Act is Finally Over
Ontario’s new Not-for-profit-Corporations Act (“ONCA”) is finally coming into effect on October 19, 2021, nearly a dozen fashionably-late years after it was first passed. The ONCA replaces an older act, the Ontario Corporations Act (“OCA”) which is over a century old and has become drastically outdated and out-paced by the more modern legislation modelled by […]
Information on Information Returns for Ontario
Most charities in Canada are focused on their annual T3010 filing with the CRA. Generally, charities incorporated outside of Ontario also have an annual corporate filing with their home jurisdiction. Since 2008, Ontario charities have been able to fulfill this obligation by filing an additional schedule with the T3010 return and the CRA has shared […]
National Bill Seeks to Change Rules for Donating Shares and Real estate
One of the bills on Parliament’s table this session is C-256,[1] a private members’ bill sponsored by a Conservative MP from Manitoba. The bill is called “Act to amend the Income Tax Act (donations involving private corporation shares or real estate)” and it proposes the elimination of capital gains tax on the items in its […]
Compelling Oral Interviews Without Recording Is a Recipe for a Disaster : Meeting with CRA for Audits
We have written previously about the difficulties that arise when CRA conducts oral interviews of taxpayers. While there is clear authority to do so, and indeed merit in having a conversation to explain the nature of a business, all interviews are fraught with danger. This can be as a result of a language difficulty or […]