Charities and Political Activities (A Tempest in a Teapot?)

Donations to charities are accorded favorable tax treatment because charities provide goods and services that have public benefits. Charities must devote substantially all of their resources to charitable causes. The minister of national revenue has just completed consultations on clarifying the rules regarding charities' engagement in political activities. In this article, information available from the Registered Charity Information Return (T3010) for each charity for the years 2000 to 2013 is used to describe the landscape of charities engaged in political activities. Fewer charities engaged in these activities at the end of this period than engaged in them earlier on. Relatively few charities engaged in these activities at all -- only about 0.50 percent in recent years. One might ask whether it was even worthwhile for the minister of national revenue to have consultations on this topic: Is this issue a tempest in a teapot?