Abusive charity gifting tax schemes only down slightly in 2011

According to Danie Huppé-Cranford, Director of the Compliance Division of the Charities Directorate the tentative 2011 numbers for abusive charity gifting tax schemes in Canada are down slightly in 2011 compared to 2010.

The 2011 tentative numbers for abusive charity gifting tax schemes are

Donors/Investors 8,874               (down 11% from last year of 9,978)
Donations     $ 299,980,015       (down 7% from last year at $321,876,595)

The height of these schemes was in 2006 when they were $1.3 billion.  Definitely a little bit of progress but largely and unfortunately relatively stable for the last two year at that $300 million level.  It is not “dead” as some lawyers have been claiming.  Recently the Toronto Star reported that CRA is increasingly looking at criminal prosecutions for various charity tax schemes and it will be interesting to see how that pans out http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1177916—charity-tax-shelter-promoters-face-criminal-probe