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The law is clampling down on Charitable Donation Schemes.
Posted By Dan White On April 6, 2007 @ 8:13 am In Tax Tips | No Comments
The next time someone tries to get you into a tax deferral scheme, or charitable donation scheme where you get a tax recept for greater than the donation. Consider that CRA makes a lot of money going after these things.
Now CRA has increased the fines to 125% of the amount of the gift. It used to work out to 3 times the amount of tax saved. This will be a real cash cow for CRA.
CRA is going after improperly issued donation receipts covering the cases where a receipt is deliberately falsified, perhaps as to the date when the gift was received but more frequently as to the amount of the gift (for example, inflated value of receipt with respect to actual value of gift). If the person responsible is an officer, employee, official, or agent of a charity, the charity is subject to the penalty. But the penalty also applies to people who:
For any infraction, the penalty is 125% of the eligible amount of the gift as it appears on any false receipt, plus a year’s suspension of the charity’s tax receipting privileges if the total of all such penalties exceeds $25,000. If by issuing false receipts, the person is also subject to a penalty under section 163.2 of the Income Tax Act (the section that provides for penalties for those who help or encourage others to make false claims on their tax returns, usually as part of a tax-shelter promotion), the person is subject to whichever penalty is larger.
If you participate in one of these schemes, you would fall under pretty much the same scenario as the promoters of the scheme.
IN SUMMARY:
If you get a receipt for larger than the amount of your real donation, you are being wilfully blind, very foolish and have a very low chance of success.
Dan White
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