What's New

November 9, 2018 the Life Insurance chapter has been updated with enhanced criteria for the acceptance of a life insurance contract.  Chapter 4 Bequests discussion of the GRE has been updated.  Several PowerPoint presentations on insurance and other topical items will be posted before end of November 2018.

October 22, 2018  The site is being revised. Sections under revision include Bequests (Chapter 4) and Life Insurance (Chapter 5).  A revised insurance tool is also being provided.  Work is scheduled for completion on October 26, 2018.  Please stay tuned.

August 2016  Two presentation were added to the Resources Centre.  

July 2016, updates were added including the 60 month GRE proposal (Section 4), Q&A response to if a charity can refuse a gift (Section 4), new Section 5.3 - Gifts of Life Insurance through Personal Corporations, definitions for holding and operating companies, and the impact of new insurance legisaltion and its effect on ACB.  Examples reflecting the new personal tax rates will be posted soon.  New resources have been posted as well!

March 2014, major additions to the website reflecting recent Budget 2014 legislation including: Graduated Rate Estate rules, suggested criteria for accepting life insurance policies, assistance when deciding to invest donations for premiums  in endowments versus a life insurance contract,  more definitions, and so forth.

February 2013 - Two PowerPoint presentations were added to the site that were presented to the BC chapter of the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada.  The morning session covered all aspects of planned giving including gift acceptance, illustration of common gift strategies, tax receipting issues, sanctions and penalties for noncompliance, and so forth.  The afternoon session with a discussion of seven "real" case studies where the various aspects of the morning session were applied and comments were received from Canada Revenue Agency's Blaine Langdon – acting manager compliance section of the charities directorate.

December 2011-the website was redesigned for better use and/or appearance. Included in the What's New section will be a blog feature where I will comment on issues specifically related to planned giving and/or issues of relevance to financial advisors, and financial ministries staff operating in the charity (tax receipting, policy and procedure, Q and A, etc). Also included in the What's New section will be RSS feeds to experts in all aspects of charitable giving. You as a charitable giving professional should be linked in to multiple sources of information including this website, CRA's website, other governmental agency websites, and RSS feeds. I will work to ensure that the best possible resources are available to you at all times.

December 2011- A series of presentations were made to CGA-BC in 2011. These presentations were made to financial administrative staff on all issues related to charitable giving including tax receipting and sanctions. The afternoon session featured seven case scenarios for discussion and comments from Canada Revenue Agency were distributed relative to each case.

July 2011 - Budget 2011 amendments (including flow through security gifts has been implemented. New definitions including GRIP, LRIP, Eligible and Non-eligible Dividends have been added. Three presentation to CAGP Round Tables on tax and other matters have been added to the Resources Section.

June 2010 - A Life Insurance Article added to Resources area that highlights some of the major pitfalls of owning older life insurance policies and the fact that they can collapse without the knowledge of the owners

June 2010 - Resources Section updated with 2010 materials. Older materials have been removed and resources for enduring property and DQ have been removed pursuant to the March 4, 2010 Budget

April 2010 - Provisions of the March 4, 2010 Federal Budget have been implemented. Specifically, references to Ten Year Gift, Enduring Property have been deleted, AND the definitions of Disbursement Quota for charitable organizations and foundations have been updated.

New Policies Added to the Resources Section! An Investment Policy Statement for investing endowed funds as well as a new 2009 set of Gift Acceptance Policy and Procedures that includes a Conflict of Interest Policy AND deals with the grind down requirements of ITA 248(35) by setting a minimum gift size before specific action is taken. In Word format for easy editing (April 2009)

New Site Launched. New Features include: Keyword Search Engine, Smaller Sections for easier reading, Pop-up Definitions, New Section on Legislative Changes & USA Cross Border gifting (Sept 2007)

How to effectively deal with insurance where there are multiple owners - a split dollar agreement (August 2007)

New sections on Gifts of Real Estate (Chapter 7) and Term Certain Annuities (Chapter 6) are added(Aug 2007)

New sections on environmental assessments and new definitions have been added (Aug 2007))