First, determine if your organization is a charity for GST/HST purposes. A registered charity for income tax purposes is also a charity for GST/HST purposes. However, a charity for GST/HST purposes does not include a public institution – registered charity that is also a school authority, a public college, university, hospital authority or a local authority determined to be a municipality.

Second, determine if your charity is making taxable supplies. The tax status of your charity’s supplies (for example, its sales, leases, rentals and services) has to be determined. Most of a charity’s supplies are tax-exempt; some of its supplies can be taxable at 5% or 13%.

Exemptions for charities
The following are examples of goods and services that are exempt when charities provide them:

• Most services
• Supplies of used or donated goods
• Meals-on-wheels program
• Facility rentals
• Catering services

Fundraising Activities
Most goods and services you sell or provide for a fundraising activity are exempt unless

• You sell these goods or services regularly or continuously throughout the year or a significant part of the year
• Your clients are entitled to receive these goods or services regularly or continually throughout the year or a significant part of the year.

Examples of sales that are exempt under this exemption include:

• Greeting card sales in the Christmas season
• Chocolate bar in an eight-week fundraising drive

Fundraising Events
The full amount you charge for admission to a fundraising event is exempt if part of the admission qualifies as a charitable donation for income tax purposes.

Donations and Gifts
GST/HST does not apply to donations and gifts. A donation or gift is a voluntary transfer of money or property for which the donor does not receive any benefits in return. If the donor receives property having nominal value such as a key ring, pin or envelope seal, the donation is still not subject to GST/HST. However, if the donor receives a good or service having more than nominal value in the exchange for the donation, the payment will be subject to tax, unless the good or service is otherwise exempt.

Sponsorships
Sponsorships may not be subject to GST/HST depending on the nature and the extent of the promotional benefits you give to the sponsor. Two examples of sponsorships that are not taxable are:

• Sponsorships when a business financially supports your activity in return for which you promote the business
• Sponsorship when you receive funding in return for allowing the sponsor the right to use your charity’s logo.

For more information about these changes, please visit http://www.cra.gc.ca.

The Minerva Fundraising Services division started in 2001 and has grown over the past nine years to be the leader in database-driven solutions for fundraisers. We are committed to serving the charitable sector by continuingly providing our clients with the best service and always utilizing our advances in technology.

We became compliant with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDIA) in 2003. We become PCI Compliant in 2010. Also, in 2010 we  received the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Chain of Custody (CoC) certification.

As a proudly Canadian company, all our Minerva Fundraising Services offerings are operated from our headquarters in Toronto. Our client data is warehoused in Toronto including our co-located facility which supplies 100 per cent uptime and secure access. This means that important donor data is never sent offshore. All our data entry and donation processing happens in Toronto.

IMS is committed to serving the charitable sector and has the infrastructure, people and systems to continue serving our clients today and tomorrow.

Proud of our high-tech reputation, our leading software technology continues to gain industry wide recognition. Industry Canada recognized our ‘advancing-the-science’ contributions and has rewarded our company with substantial research and development grants over a number of years to encourage us to continue our leading edge developments.

Key Facts

• Canadian Fundraising Company
• 200+ full-time employees work out of offices in Toronto, New York and London.
• Since 1997 we have successfully written every piece of software with a web component.
• All client data is warehoused at our co-location facility in Toronto for 100% uptime and secure access.
• Our single largest database grows at over 180 million records per month, to a projected size of 2.2 billion records a year.
• Headquartered in Toronto, occupying a 38,000 sq ft. facility.
• With 30+ years under our belts, we have yet to have a single year pass without introducing something new (often value-added) to our clients.

To learn more about our Publishing services including Ad Tracking, Lead Generation and Web Services, please click here.