Standing Committee on Finance Pre-Budget submission for the 2013 Canadian Federal Budget

The Standing Committee on Finance Pre-Budget submission deadline for the 2013 Canadian Federal Budget has passed.  I put in a brief submission with a number of recommendations including: Recommendations: 1) We need better governance in the charity sector through education and training to ensure that there is appropriate stewardship of the resources that charities have. 2) We need more transparency in the charitable sector through a. changes to the Income Act to allow CRA to disclose more about registered charities and also non-profits; b. an improved T3010 Registered Charity Information Return which provides greater details on charities, especially large charities, as we have seen in the UK and US improving their charity sector’s transparency over the last few years; and c. Canadians need to encouraged to be more knowledgeable and aware in their giving and to be able to carefully select worthy charities and avoid scams; 3) We need to reduce the amount of abuse of charities by a relatively small number of people a. by monitoring the implementation of the “ineligible individual” rules, and if these rules are not sufficiently effective in removing those who abuse charities, or their beneficiaries, then considering additional measures.; and b. making greater use of police forces to investigate abuse of charities and establishing a dedicated police unit that focuses on complicated schemes involving charity fraud.  4) We don’t need more tax incentives that will disproportionately benefit a few charities, including closely held private foundations, and some very wealthy individuals. Rather we should make small changes to the disbursement quota to increase the payout from 3.5% to 5%, so hundreds of millions of dollars can be used for charitable programming that would have been otherwise an unauthorized encroachment on capital.