The time is right: Sweeten giving in the 2015 budget

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The time is right: Sweeten giving in the 2015 budget

[ http://business.financialpost.com/2015/ ... 15-budget/ ]

Donald K. Johnson, Special to Financial Post | February 26, 2015 | Last Updated: Feb 27 9:37 AM ET

2015 is an election year and the 2015 Budget will be relevant to the election outcome. Understandably, many organizations across Canada have been advocating that the government allocate a portion of its forecast budget surplus to worthy causes that would benefit their specific areas of interest.

The sector that represents and serves the largest number of Canadians is the not-for-profit sector. These include hospitals, universities, arts and cultural organizations, social service agencies and religious organizations. The stakeholders include their 2.1 million employees and hundreds of thousands of volunteers and board members, in addition to individual and corporate donors.

Now not-for-profit organizations advocate the removal of the capital gains tax on charitable donations of private company shares and real estate. The removal of the capital gains tax on gifts to charities of listed securities in the 2006 budget has been an enormous success. Charities across Canada have received over $1 billion in gifts of stock every year since that change. An outstanding example is the recent donation of $130 million by the Rogers family to create the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research. It is matched by the University Health Network, the University of Toronto, and the Hospital for Sick Children.

The House Finance Committee conducted extensive hearings on “Tax Incentives for Charitable Donations” across Canada in 2012. In its report to the House in February 2013, the first of its six recommendations was to remove the capital gains tax on gifts of private company shares and real estate “subject to the government’s stated intention to balance the budget in the medium term.” Now that a budget surplus is forecast for the fiscal year 2015/16, the 2015 budget is the time to introduce these measures.

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