Canadian Charity Law

Charitable organizations in Canada are regulated under the Canadian Income Tax Act through the Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency.

There are more than 85,600 registered charities in Canada. TGDP of Canada. Registered charities are registered under the Income Tax Act as either a "charitable organization", "public foundation" or "private foundation". Although these distinctions were more important in the past, there are now few practical differences between the three types of registered charities.

The Income Tax Act does not define "charity" and Canada uses a common law definition, namely purposes that fall within the four "heads" of charity: the relief of poverty, the advancement of education, the advancement of religion, or other purposes that benefit the community in a way the courts have said are charitable.

This definition comes from the English case Commissioners for Special Purposes of Income Tax v. Pemsel commonly referred to as Pemsel.

The organization's purposes must be exclusively and legally charitable. Therefore all the purposes of the charity must be charitable, not just most purposes. In addition the organization must be established and resident in Canada.

Furthermore, there is a public benefit test: the charity must benefit the public or a sufficient segment of the public to be a registered charity in Canada.

Canadian registered charities can carry out charitable activities by either gifting funds to a qualified donee or by carrying on its own activities through employees, volunteers or intermediaries.

Canadian charities can also, within certain limitations, carry out fundraising activities, business activities, political activities and social activities.

Charities can also participate in Community Economic Development (CED) activities. CED activities may further charitable purposes that: relieve poverty; advance education; or benefit the community in other ways the law regards as charitable. However, it is important to note that the CRA does not recognize CED activities as a distinctly charitable in and of itself. CED activities have been closely linked to developments in social enterprise and social finance as a way for charities and non-profits to be more sustainable. According to Mark Blumberg, in 2012 charities earned more revenue than they received donations. A number of organizations, such as Enterprising Non-Profits, Centre for Social Innovation and Assiniboine Credit Union have been supporting charities and non-profits participating in CED activities across Canada. Other notable Canadian leaders in the field supporting charities to engage in CED and social enterprise development are Tonya Surman, Mitchell Kutney, David LePage and Bruce Campbell.

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Wikipedia