Good afternoon. Bonjour. My name is Mary Dodd. I'm an accountant. I'm the chief financial officer for Women's College Hospital Foundation in Toronto.
I'm honoured to be asked to appear before this committee, and I want to take the opportunity to not only speak on behalf of myself and Women's College Hospital Foundation, but also on behalf of the hospital foundations that are associated with the Toronto Academic Health Sciences Network, or TAHSN. TAHSN is comprised of the University of Toronto and its affiliated academic hospitals, each of which holds national and international standing as leaders in their particular fields.
The hospital names will be familiar to you and include Baycrest, Holland Bloorview, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, St. Michael's, Mount Sinai, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto General and Western, Princess Margaret, SickKids, and Women's College Hospital. Collectively we receive 14% of the philanthropic dollars given to hospital foundations in Canada.
I met with my hospital foundation colleagues in February to discuss the goals of this committee's study and to come to a consensus of opinion regarding tax incentives to promote charitable giving. As a group, we're very supportive of the stretch tax credit that's been advocated by Imagine Canada and others. We believe it will help to increase participation in giving levels and be a benefit on a national basis. We strongly encourage the committee to recommend its adoption.
Yet despite our support, we do not expect that the stretch tax credit will yield significant additional dollars for our particular foundations. The reason for this is that the majority of fundraising at the hospital and university level is done at what's called the major giving level. These are gifts from donors in excess of $10,000. In many instances, these gifts represent a transfer of capital rather than income from the donor. It's these gifts of capital that enable new hospitals to be built, life saving technology and equipment to be purchased, and innovative research to be undertaken that will improve health care outcomes for patients and change how we deliver care in the future.
To support this type of transformational giving, we advocate that the capital gains exemption currently in place for publicly traded shares be expanded to encompass gifts of real estate and private shares. Implementation in 2006 of the capital gains exemption on publicly traded stock had an immediate and lasting positive impact on our foundations and the sector as a whole.
We believe that expanding the exemption to real estate and to private shares will have the same impact. In fact, given the large anticipated generational wealth transfer, it will likely have an even greater impact. It may also enable individuals to make transformational gifts in their lifetime rather than as a consequence of estate planning.
We recognize that clear rules need to be established to govern the valuation and transparency of these transactions, but we know it can be achieved. Hand in glove with extending the capital gains exemption would be an undertaking to remove the restriction that charitable donations can only be claimed in one year up to 75% of net income. Why have a provision in the Income Tax Act that restricts extraordinary generosity?
We believe our government has a very important role to continue to promote philanthropy as a core Canadian value. The ability of legislation to increase charitable giving has been demonstrated in the past with the implementation of the capital gains exemption on publicly traded shares. The government's ability to influence charitable giving can be further enhanced with the addition of tax incentives such as the stretch tax credit and the capital gains exemption expansion.
Thank you very much.