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Greetings!
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Welcome to the May 2012 edition of Charity Law Insights.
May is turning into a very interesting month for the charity community,unfortunately interesting rarely means good. The current preoccupation with charities involved in political advocacy is creating a veritable media frenzy just when the Parliamentary Finance Committee is turning its mind to charitable donations. While right now most of what is happening is merely talk, the right elements for a 'perfect storm' seem to be coming together. The charity community will certainly be watching with interest.
But of course there are a variety of other goings on as well and below you will find articles discussing a case of extraordinary interest to those who work in charities, the new fundraising guidelines, anti spam rules and social assistance payments.
Finally, Drache Aptowitzer LLP is please to announce that Adam Aptowitzer has been named to the Top 40 Under 40 list by the Ottawa Business Journal and the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce.
As usual, the Drache Aptowitzer LLP team looks forward to hearing any comments or feedback you may have about our newsletter.
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Yours truly,
Drache Aptowitzer LLP
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The Canary in the Charity Mineshaft
 In our last edition our colleague Joel Sector wrote an important article regarding officer's liability under the new Canada Not For Profit Corporations Act. The article struck a chord and did its job in alerting a large number of officers of charities to potential liabilities. However, given the relative strength and activity of the CRA in enforcing the Income Tax Act, perhaps even greater attention should be paid to the CRA's recent actions in leveling a crippling fine against the President of a charity for her role in, amongst other things, signing inaccurate donation tax receipts. For more information click here:
http://drache.ca/articles/charities/huge-implications
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Fundraising by Registered Charities - CRA's Updated Guidance
The CRA has not changed its position on fundraising by charities. It had asked for feedback on the Guidance CPS-028, Fundraising by Registered Charities when it was published in June 2009. After reviewing the submitted comments, the CRA revised the guidance to clarify certain key concepts.This new guidance,CG-013, issued April 20, 2012, replaces the previous version of the Guidance. The new section entitled "When is fundraising not acceptable?" bears further analysis and should be carefully reviewed by all charities. It answers the question in the positive by saying that fundraising is acceptable unless it is described in a delineated list.
To see the rest of this article click here:
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 A CRA technical Interpretation letter offers a lot of guidance to charities and other organizations which give what the Income Tax Act refers to as "social assistance payments" to needy individuals. While the ruling breaks no news ground, it is almost a primer on the obligations of both the organization making the payments of the person receiving them.
To read the full article click here: |
Canada's Anti-Spam Law - expected to be in force in 2013
The Minister of Industry has recently stated that Bill C-28, Canada's Anti-Spam Law (the "Act"), is expected to take effect next year. We have written about this legislation before. This legislation intends to stop unsolicited commercial electronic messages and unwanted spyware and malware from being transmitted and installed on our computers. The Government now has a website to help individuals, businesses and organizations learn more about this law (www.fightspam.gc.ca).
To see the rest of this article click here:
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