http://decisions.fca-caf.gc.ca/fca-caf/decisions/en/item/143132/index.do
Opportunities for the Disabled Foundation v. Canada (National Revenue) (March 24, 2016 – 2016 FCA 94, Ryer (author), Near, Boivin JJ. A.).
Précis: The appellant charity had been the subject of three prior audits which led to its entering a Compliance Agreement with CRA in 2006. In 2013 CRA, as a result of an audit of its 2010 taxation year, issued a Revocation Proposal:
[8] In the Revocation Proposal, the CRA outlined its reasons for not responding to the questions that were posed to it by Appellant’s counsel and stated that the limited responses to the concerns expressed in the Administrative Fairness Letter that were provided by Appellant’s counsel did not address those concerns. The CRA proposed to revoke the registration of the Appellant as a charitable organization on the basis of the following instances of non-compliance with the Act by the Appellant, which had been previously mentioned in the Administrative Fairness Letter, namely that it:
- failed to devote all of its resources to charitable activities carried on by it;
- made gifts to non-qualified donees;
- provided undue benefits to fundraisers and directors;
- failed to maintain adequate books and records; and
- failed to file an information return as required by the Act.
[9] It is apparent that a number of those concerns overlap with the commitments made by the Appellant in the Compliance Agreement.
The appellant objected to the Revocation Proposal but CRA published it in the Royal Gazette and it instituted this appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal carefully reviewed all 10 arguments (6 main grounds, 5 separate topics under ground 6) argued by counsel for the appellant and rejected each and every one.
Decision: I am not going to publish a detailed commentary on this case since in my view the plethora of arguments raised have virtually no intellectual interest. One has to admire the tenacity of Justice Ryer in dealing with so much dross without losing his temper.