StatsCan stats on charity sector interesting - but notes even more interesting

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.