L’Ecole Notre Dame Du Nord Inc. was registered charity that was revoked by CRA.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 …”

I guess they did not respond.  Here are the revocation documents from CRA with respect to L’Ecole Notre Dame Du Nord Inc

On the CRA website it identifies:

“Summary of Reasons for Revocation – L’ECOLE NOTRE DAME DU NORD INC.
Upon termination of its corporate status, L’ École 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).”

It appears that there are about 7 or 8 other entities listed on the CRA Charities Listing that were recently revoked for ‘ceasing to exist as an entity at law’.

What can we learn from this case:
1) Incorporated charities that are dissolved can lose their charitable status – this is very important because with the new Federal non-profit act (the CNCA) many thousands of charities if they do not “continue” or move over the new act from the Canada Corporations Act may be facing this fate.
2) You should check if your corporation is dissolved – this can be done by contacting the companies branch of the incorporating jurisdiction. eg. Industry Canada for federal corporations or the provincial government companies branch.
3) If you are dissolved and wish to maintain your charitable status you should obtain a revival.
4) If you are dissolved and do not wish to obtain a revival you might want to wind things up in a nice orderly fashion and look into asking CRA for a voluntary revocation.

Here is information on the CRA website on various types of revocation and processes relating to them http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/chrts-gvng/chrts/rvkng/menu-eng.html