Finance committee  Good morning, Mr. Chairman and distinguished committee members. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to appear before your committee this morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Don Johnson, and I am appearing today in my role as a volunteer board member of

Finance committee  There is no tax revenue cost to the municipality. Finally, on political support, the NDP is supportive. They are now the official opposition. Mr. Thomas Mulcair communicated that support two years ago. The Hon. Scott Brison, finance critic for the Liberal Party, is supportive.

Finance committee  Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for providing me with an opportunity to participate in this important hearing on tax incentives for charitable donations. l'm appearing today in my capacity as a volunteer board member of four not-for-profit organizations in each ar

Finance committee  You make a very good point. The catalyst for major donations—eliminating the capital gains tax on private company shares—would be at a time when the entrepreneur is deciding to retire and the children aren't going to take over the business. The owner is going to end up selling th

Finance committee  Yes, that is correct.

Finance committee  I think most of the gifts of land and real estate would be incremental to what the donor would normally be giving. If the donor's current capacity to give is his or her ability to donate cash, and they own a significant asset in the form of real estate, which has a low cost base,

Finance committee  You'd donate the cash within 30 days of having sold the asset.

Finance committee  It's better for the actual donor to sell the real estate than to transfer the real estate to the charity because charities typically don't have the capacity to address all the issues associated with real estate. The owner of the real estate would know all that and would know who

Finance committee  On Scott Brison's point, if the donor is responsible for paying a tax on the donated asset, then in the vast majority of cases they're simply going to hold onto the asset. So the government is not going to get the capital gains tax revenue because the donors simply hold onto the

Finance committee  Also, with gifts of real estate, when the donor sells the real estate, if it's, say, commercial real estate, they've had the tax benefit of the amortization of the cost of that real estate. There would be a recapture of the amortization of the asset, so they would be paying tax o

Finance committee  You prevent that from happening by saying that the charity cannot issue a tax receipt to the donor until the charity has received the cash for the sale of the asset. That's the real value.

Finance committee  I'd just like to add one other thing, since there's a lot of interest in United Way around here. I happen to have been a member of the major individual giving cabinet for Toronto United Way for the past 10 years, so I will give you an example in terms of how removing this tax bar

Finance committee  First of all, the estimate of how much charitable giving would increase in the form of private company shares and real estate was based upon the U.S. experience. In the United States currently, gifts of appreciated capital property are exempt, which includes listed securities, pr

Finance committee  He's now a senior adviser to a law firm.

Finance committee  He provided assistance in analyzing the tax expenditure report.