News
March 2012
CharityFocus.ca is a new tool created by Imagine Canada to allow searches of Canadian registered charities. You can now also search by directors.
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/02/2012 |
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The Charities Directorate of CRA has announced that registration for three new webinars is open. These are free webinars offered by the the Charities Directorate to registered charities or others interested in compliance issues.
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/01/2012 |
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The Jerusalem Post has written articles on an Israeli soup kitchen that received a large amount of funds from Canada and other countries around the world. The Canadian charity was concerned that their agent in Israel was not providing adequate information on the operations and the Canadian charity investigated the matter and subsequently stopped funding the Israeli charity. This story even has a little intrigue as ex-Mossad agents were apparently hired to do some of the investigating. I checked the CRA Guidance on foreign activities (http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/chrts-gvng/chrts/plcy/cgd/tsd-cnd-eng.html) and there does not appear to be any requirement to use ex-Mossad agents - although I guess I cannot hurt! This story is also a little unusual in that the Canadian charity is discovering a problem abroad AND they are telling the public about it. Usually these matters are hidden under the carpet. The Israeli charity denies any wrongdoing.
At the Hillborn website charityinfo.ca there is an interesting article entitled ““Behaviour modification” the goal in suit against law firm” which discusses a recent class action lawsuit by Scarfone Hawkins related to the Banyan Tree Foundation abusive charity gifting tax scheme.
February 2012
Here are three free webinars from the Charity Law Information Program dealing with receipting by registered charities and gifts in kind on March 6, 2012.
The Charities Directorate of CRA has revoked the registered charity status of the group “World Assembly of Muslim Youth” CRA notes: “Summary of Reasons for Revocation - WORLD ASSEMBLY OF MUSLIM YOUTH On the basis of our audit and of our review of the Organization’s Registered Charity Information Returns for the years from 2005 to 2009, we have concluded that the Organization: failed to comply with or contravened subsection 230(2) of the Act; ceased to comply with the requirements of the Act for its continued registration; and failed to file an information return as required under the Act. Our analysis of the Organization’s operations has led the CRA to believe that the Organization, which has been inactive since at least 2005, was established to support the goals and operations of its parent organization located in Saudi Arabia. Our analysis particularly noted that the Organization shared a common director, contact information, and a bank account with the Benevolence International Fund in Canada (BIF-Canada), and provided $50,246 to the Benevolence International Foundation in the United States (BIF-USA) in 2001. On November 21, 2002, BIF-Canada and BIF-USA were added to the Consolidated List of the United Nations Security Council’s Al-Qaida and Taliban and Sanctions Committee.”
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/21/2012 |
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ORNGE, for those outside of Ontario, is a Canadian registered charity that runs the air ambulance service in Ontario. Their helicopters are painted orange. It is a charity but largely funded by the Ontario government. ORNGE has been receiving a large amount of media scrutiny over the last few months.
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/21/2012 |
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The CRA recently revoked the registered charity status of the United Holy Land Fund. CRA alleges that the United Holy Land Fund did not have “direction and control” over the use of its resources, failed to maintain adequate books and records and made gifts to non-qualified donees. The amounts involved appear to be quite small - about $16,000.
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/21/2012 |
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L’Ecole Notre Dame Du Nord Inc. was registered charity that was revoked by CRA. I thought it worth mentioning because the reason for dissolution provided by CRA seems quite mundane but important for charities to pay attention to. In May 2011 CRA noticed that the corporate entity L’Ecole Notre Dame Du Nord Inc had become dissolved. CRA advised “Upon termination of its corporate status L’Ecole Notre Dame Du Nord Inc. ceased to exist as an entity at law and as such no longer qualifies for registration as a charity under the Income Tax Act, subsection 248(1).” They were then given 90 days to show “proof that it exists as a corporate entity. Failure to comply will result in the CRA revoking the charity’s registration by publishing the follow notice in the Canada Gazette ...”
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/17/2012 |
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Here is an article on the Ontario air ambulance service Ornge which discusses the involvement of legal and accounting firms in the structuring of the transaction.
Corporations Canada will be having a Client Outreach Session in Toronto, March 8, 2012. Here is further information.
The Canada Revenue Agency has revoked the registration of Escarpment Biosphere Foundation Inc. as a charity for participating in the Canadian Humanitarian Trust tax shelter gifting arrangement (Donation Program). The CRA notes “Our audit revealed that the Escarpment Biosphere Foundation Inc. (the Organization) received cash and pharmaceuticals with a purported value of over $407 million as a result of its participating in the Canadian Humanitarian Trust tax shelter gifting arrangement (Donation Program). It is our position the Organization failed to verify the value of the properties and to maintain direction and control over the distribution of the properties. Further, we believe the Organization agreed, for a fee of approximately $1 million, to lend legitimacy to the Donation Program by representing that it had received and distributed the properties in its own charitable programs. As such, it is our position the Organization failed to operate exclusively for charitable purposes by acting as a conduit for the Donation Program and redistributing 99% of the cash received to other parties in the Donation Program.”
There will be another Being Good at Doing Good conference on February 13 and 14, 2012 organized by the Charity Law Information Program - you don’t want to miss this conference. We will have some of the top experts from Canada, the US and the UK on governance, financial management and compliance. Here is the registration page: http://www.clipconference.wildapricot.org/ The conference is “Doing Good” at registrations with over 205 people signed up so far. Here is the Preliminary Conference Schedule
Here is another short article on the Cannon v. Funds for Canada Foundation class action lawsuit.
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/05/2012 |
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The Toronto Star has been doing a number of articles on a Canadian registered charity named “ORNGE” which provides air ambulance services in Ontario. In this article Kevin Donovan, investigative reporter for the Toronto Star, is discussing amounts of legal fees paid by ORNGE and the services provided.
CRA will be shortly releasing their much anticipated revised Guidance on Fundraising. Join charity lawyer Mark Blumberg as he presents a webinar on behalf of the Charity Law Information Program entitled “CRA’s New Fundraising Guidance” on Friday, February 10, 2012 at 1PM EST for approximately 1 hour.
January 2012
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/31/2012 |
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Here is a copy of my submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance on Motion 559 dealing with transparency.
Here is the Blumbergs’ Canadian Charity Law List - January 2012
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/28/2012 |
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For a number of years CRA has been aggressively targeting charities that are involved with abusive tax shelter schemes or in serious non-compliance with their legal obligations under the Income Tax Act. In some cases CRA puts out a news release but that only provides a small amount of detail as to the concerns of the regulator. Anyone can request from CRA copies of letters sent by the Charities Directorate to a charity which provide a lot more detailed information. Here are copies of news releases and more importantly in some cases the letters from CRA to the charity.
StatsCan recently published some statistics on charitable giving. They noted “Canadian taxfilers reported making charitable donations of just under $8.3 billion in 2010, up 6.5% from 2009. At the same time, the number of donors increased 2.2% to just over 5.7 million. Data are based on income tax returns filed for 2010.” That is a bit of a good news story and shows that many Canadians who have jobs feels quite lucky and are generally digging into their pockets more. What is interesting and not discussed by StatsCan is that Canadian charities according to their T3010 filings issued about $13 billion in donation receipts. Why then almost a 5 billion dollars difference between the T3010 filings and the personal income tax returns? Many Canadians gave under $200 and did not claim any amount on their return. Some donations came from corporations and not personal taxfilers. Also maybe some who gave over $200 did not keep their receipts or did not think it was important to file them. Perhaps the tax benefits of donating to registered charities are less important to some than to others.
There are a couple of interesting websites which allow much easier searching of information from the T3010 databases. One is CharityFocus.ca (discussed at http://www.globalphilanthropy.ca/index.php/blog/comments/charity_focus_from_imagine_canada_-_a_helpful_tool_to_analyze_canadian_char/ ). Another interesting website is http://www.opencharity.ca Opencharity.ca allows for visitors to search not only by charity name but also directors name.
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/26/2012 |
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Alice Holt, the Head of Legal Services for the London office of the Charity Commission of England and Wales will be speaking at CLIP “Being Good at Doing Good” Conference in Toronto, which is being held February 13 and 14. We are delighted to have Alice join us.
Imagine Canada will be officially launching its Charity Focus website soon. You can review the website at http://www.charityfocus.ca/
The CRA has published Charity Connection No. 11 on the 2011 Federal Budget. The publication highlights some of the major changes for registered charities, RCAAAs and other qualified donees. There will be more information on certain other budgetary provisions in the near future such as the “ineligible individual” provisions..
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/24/2012 |
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Ontario tax litigator, Natalie Worsfold, has an interesting blog called “Trouble with Taxes”. She has a page on the GLGI gifting arrangement. Of particular note is the lengthy PDF of court documents.
The CRA has revoked for cause “Word of Christ Ministry” and “Hope Church of God Deliverance Ministries” for involvement in promoted charity schemes.
On January 23, 2012 the National Post published an article entitled “Judge OKs suit against charity tax ‘scheme’” by Joseph Brean which discusses a class action lawsuit against various parties relating to the “Donations for Canada Gift Program”.
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/18/2012 |
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[Update - We are delighted to have over 65 people/organizations attend the webinar “Successfully Funding First Nations Communities in Canada in Compliance with CRA Guidance” Here is an archived version of the presentation: https://ocsa.webex.com/ocsa/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=TC&rID=8543797&act=pb&rKey=7ae8d62d96563d62 Also here is a shortlink if the long link does not work: http://ow.ly/90e1N Here is a copy of the presentation in PDF of Successfully funding First Nations communities in Canada in compliance with CRA guidance]
The first class action lawsuit involving what CRA terms an “abusive charity gifting tax scheme” has settled at a Settlement and Class Counsel Fee Approval Hearing that was held on January 17, 2012 in Toronto. The material for that hearing is on the Scarfone Hawkins website and is quite interesting reading providing lots of interesting details about the scheme. Here is announcement from the Plaintiff’s lawyers Scarfone Hawkins LLP.
