Charity Filing and Compliance Obligations: The CRA Has Checklists to Help

The CRA Charity Directorate provides a number of fairly comprehensive and easy to read checklists relating to various responsibilities associated with operating a registered charity. These can be particularly helpful as a reminder for individuals who are involved (employee, volunteer, or even Board Member) with a charitable organization. For example, clear guidance is provided on what is required to be included on a donation receipt for both cash and non-cash donations.

Provided checklists include: Basic guidelines, Activities, Books and records, Receipting, Spending requirement, T3010, Legal status, Changes, GST/HST, and Terrorism.

The Checklists can be found at https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/charities-giving/charities/checklists-charities.html.

If participating as a Board Member with a charitable organization, it may be useful to encourage or require use of these checklists by staff or volunteers.