Yeah, about "The Democracy Fund" ...

Short note about an exciting, recent development involving the mysterious CRA-registered charity "The Democracy Fund", through which Rebel News assures donors they can receive charitable tax receipts if they make their donations specifically through that charity to its "Fight the Fines" campaign (despite The Democracy Fund having absolutely nothing to do with that campaign and not even mentioning it on their web page).

Anonymous minion dropped me a note and told the story of actually calling Canada Revenue Agency, the Charities Directorate, in order to chat with someone about whether this sort of thing is legal. The first individual contacted reportedly listened patiently as said minion walked him through the web pages that described the campaign, particularly the part where donors were instructed to donate to a totally different entity in order to get their tax receipt.

Eventually, first CRA person transferred minion to someone in the actual charities fraud and compliance department (or whatever it's called), at which point that person also listened patiently and followed the trail of claims and web sites and read the assurances of tax receipts, at which point, the CRA person reportedly said (and I am quoting from the email I received):

"That's not legal. You can't do that."

Without having been a party to that call, I can't verify if things were described accurately, but the aforementioned CRA person apparently took the time to bring up the web pages in a browser, and read the contents therein, and reportedly seemed to have a reasonable grasp of the issues, and his opinion was absolutely unambiguous -- no, it can't happen that way.

Now, if Rebel News and The Democracy Fund have indeed found a clever way wherein people can donate to a campaign while getting tax receipts from someone else, good for them, but I think it's at least moderately interesting to hear that someone at the CRA seems pretty sure that's not allowed.

I guess we have to wait to see how this shakes out.

And, no, we're not done here.

AFTERSNARK: Anonymous correspondent asks a pertinent question -- has anyone received an actual tax receipt for their donation to "Fight the Fines?" I don't mean just a confirmation e-mail, I mean a real, actual tax receipt and not just a promise of same. A simple promise of an eventual tax receipt gives the campaign time to work out how they're going to do this, but an actual tax receipt means they're committed, and that's a kettle of horses of a different colour.

Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?