New CRA Ruling on Making Loans to Foundations By Alexandra Tzannidakis, LL.B. In July of this year, the CRA issued a ruling around making loans to charitable foundations. The ruling was requested by a taxable corporation that had set up its own foundation, a registered charity. The corporation wanted to know what the tax consequence […]
Access to Members’ Personal Information
By Joel Secter The Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (CNCA) requires federal non-share capital corporations to prepare and maintain records including, among other things, a register of members, directors and officers. This should be familiar to corporations originally established under Part II of the Canada Corporations Act because it also required them to keep separate registers […]
New CRA Guidance on Ineligible Individuals
By Arthur Drache C.M., Q.C. At the end of August, the CRA published a lengthy Guidance (36 printed pages) dealing with its views on who are ineligible individuals under the charity provisions of the Income Tax Act.1 The ineligible individual provisions in the Income Tax Act came into force on January 1, 2012. These provisions […]
Charity How-To: What to do when Faced with an Issue of Non-Compliance
By Tanya Carleton When a charity becomes aware that it has been non-compliant with either the Income Tax Act or the common law, it can cause great anxiety within the organization. According to the CRA, however, most non-compliance issues are “unintentional, accidental, and often of low material consequence,” and they encourage charities to disclose any […]
Charity Board Responsibility
By Mark S. Anshan In following several not-for-profit and charity mailing lists, I have noticed there are discussions taking place among individuals serving as directors of charities and foundations expressing concerns about governance and apparent lack of proper controls and accountability. With news of charities coming under review and being subjected to government audits, directors […]
Artists Triumph in Supreme Court
By Joel Secter Canadian visual artists celebrated on Sparks Street in Ottawa after their appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was allowed from the bench on May 14, 2014.1 They have been embroiled in a legal dispute with the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) since negotiation of a scale agreement with the iconic institution […]
Ontario Budget Would Hit Higher Income Donors
By Arthur B. C. Drache, C.M., Q.C. As most readers will be aware, Ontario recently underwent a provincial election when it became clear that the Budget brought down on May 1 would be defeated, causing Premier Kathleen Wynne to pull the plug and call for the vote on June 12. Her Liberal party came out […]
Another Cautionary Reminder
By Arthur B. C Drache Over the years, one of our themes has been the need to take steps to protect an organization’s assets even from the possible depredations of employees and volunteers. While no single step can offer complete protection, one of the most basic protective approaches is to require at least two signatures […]
The Evolving Law of Charitable Gifts
By Alexandra Tzannidakis, LL.B. The lack of a statutory definition of a “gift” has created ongoing problems between taxpayers and the Canada Revenue Agency in regards to charitable donation tax receipts. Ultimately, the various disputes that arise are settled by the courts, who in the process fulfil their common law role of whittling away at […]
ONCA: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
By Joel Secter The Ontario election called for June 12th has delayed proclamation of the Ontario Not-for-profit Corporations Act, 2010 (ONCA) yet again. You may recall a previous update when we reported that the ONCA could not come into force until a series of technical amendments to it and a multitude of other statutes were approved in […]