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Income tax — donations to suspect charity allowed

My clients were three professionals who had track records of substantial charitable donations to Jewish charities every year. They made donations to a particular charity that was the subject of an investigation by the CRA. The director of this particular charity was convicted for taking part in a scheme designed to fraudulently allow individuals to claim charitable donation tax credits when they received cash back for a large portion of the amount they "donated". However, not all of this charity's donations were fraudulent.

My clients were tarred with the brush of the fraudulent donations, even though there was no evidence that they had participated in the scheme. They were reassessed to deny their tax credit claims, and penalties were assessed. They approached me for help.

I filed Notices of Objection, noting that my clients' returns were "statute-barred", since over 3 years had run from the dates of their original assessments before the reassessments were issued. This put the onus on the CRA to prove that my clients had acted fraudulently or at least negligently.

I demonstrated to the CRA that my clients' donations to this particular charity were not out of line with their substantial donations to many other charities over a 10-year period.

The CRA Appeals Officer agreed, and cancelled the reassessments.

Problem vanished!

(2002)