Tuesday, September 15, 2020

New $50 bounty, regarding tax receipts received by donors to Rebel's 2016 fundraiser.

This is the third bounty I'm offering with respect to Rebel Media's 2016 Indiegogo fundraiser, ostensibly for the Red Cross in support of Fort McMurray wildfire victims, and this bounty might seem a little odd but bear with me.

One of Ezra Levant's unequivocal assurances related to that fundraiser was that all donors who asked would get a charitable tax receipt for their donation to his online fundraiser, a puzzling promise since, at the time, neither Ezra Levant nor Rebel Media was a registered charity under CRA rules, and therefore was not authorized to dispense such receipts. Ezra's somewhat nebulous explanation was to insist, without any evidence, that the Red Cross would graciously step in and handle all that, but that's neither here nor there and is not the issue.

Despite the fact that, to this day, I have never seen any evidence of tax receipts being issued, I'm willing to believe that the Red Cross eventually came through and tax receipts went out, but that's not what I'm after. Rather, I'm interested in documentation related to the amount of the tax receipt as compared to the amount actually donated, and here's why.

As Ezra Levant finally admitted (but not publicly, as far as I know; there's another bounty for that), all donations to his fundraiser lost 5 per cent to Indiegogo's standard processing fee, which means that, if one donated, say, $100, only $95 of that eventually made it to the Red Cross, and here's why that's interesting.

Some time after the fundraiser, I chatted with someone at the Red Cross and mentioned the 5 per cent loss of every donation to Indiegogo's processing fee, and asked, if someone donated $100, and only $95 subsequently made it to the Red Cross, legally, what amount would the donor be eligible for with respect to that tax receipt, and I was told 95 dollars.

Make sure you understand this -- even though the donor handed over $100, after Indiegogo took their processing fee, only $95 of that would make it to the Red Cross, which meant that the Red Cross could legally issue a tax receipt for only the amount they received; that is, $95. Which brings us to how you can collect this new $50 bounty.

I would like an example of one of those tax receipts from back in 2016, showing clearly the amount of the receipt, as well as documentation of the amount originally donated, to see if the receipt matches the full amount of the donation, or whether the Red Cross properly deducted 5 per cent from each donation. Either way, this is going to be useful information.

So, that's the challenge -- a $50 bounty for the first verifiable example of an online donation to Rebel Media's 2016 "Red Cross" fundraiser, along with verifiable documentation of the subsequently generated charitable tax receipt.

And ... go.

BONUS TRACK: There's much more going on with this issue than I suspect most of you are aware of, but since Ezra Levant has never, ever, ever provided me with actual evidence of tax receipts being issued to donors (and for what amounts), I have recently contacted the Red Cross, and specifically asked for all information they have on Ezra's 2016 fundraiser and, in particular, for information on how tax receipts were issued and for what amounts compared to each donor's actual contribution amount.

I am now waiting for a call back to get all that information and, when it arrives, I will post publicly whatever is appropriate.

Stay tuned ...

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