The Canadian Tax Foundation was founded in 1945 as an independent, non-partisan, non-profit
tax
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...
research organization under the joint sponsorship of the
Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants
The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) was incorporated by an Act of the Parliament of Canada in 1902, which later became known as the ''Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants Act''.
The CICA developed and supported accounti ...
and the
Canadian Bar Association
The Canadian Bar Association (CBA), or Association du barreau canadien (ABC) in French, represents over 37,000 lawyers, judges, notaries, law teachers and law students from across Canada.
History
The Association's first Annual Meeting was he ...
. It provides a unique forum for lawyers, accountants, academics, and other tax professionals to work together for the betterment of the
Canadian tax system and the tax profession in general.
Information
The Foundation is located in downtown
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
. In 1987, the Foundation's
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...
office was established in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...
to serve the Quebec tax community in both official languages and to provide francophone practitioners across
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...
with access in French to the Foundation's services. The Quebec office organizes conferences, seminars, and other professional-development events; maintains working relationships with tax authorities in Quebec and Ottawa; and represents the Foundation on various committees and working groups.
The Canadian Tax Foundation is Canada's leading source of insight into tax issues; it promotes understanding of the Canadian tax system through analysis, research, and debate, and it offers impartial recommendations concerning the system's equity, efficiency, and application. The Foundation, which has more than 10,000 members, is known for the scope and depth of the tax information that it provides and for its services to members that support their everyday work in the taxation field.
The Foundation fulfills its educational mandate through its conferences and seminars and through a wide range of events, awards, and publications. The Young Practitioners program, which has 9 regional chapters, is aimed at tax professionals with up to 10 years of experience. The Douglas J. Sherbaniuk Distinguished Writing Award, which is named after the Foundation's late director emeritus, is conferred annually on the author of the best writing undertaken for the Foundation in the previous year. The Foundation also confers up to four regional Student-Paper Awards annually: the Canadian Tax Foundation-Bert Wolfe Nitikman Foundation Award (Western Canada), the Canadian Tax Foundation-Fasken Martineau DuMoulin Award (Ontario), the Canadian Tax Foundation-Jean Potvin Award (Quebec), and the Canadian Tax Foundation-McInnes Cooper Award (Atlantic Canada).
The Foundation sponsors or directly carries out expert research in taxation and
public finance
Public finance is the study of the role of the government in the economy. It is the branch of economics that assesses the government revenue and government expenditure of the public authorities and the adjustment of one or the other to achi ...
and publishes the results of that research. The wide-ranging publications program includes treatises, textbooks, conference proceedings, and monographs. In addition, the Foundation publishes timely newsletters: Canadian Tax Highlights/Faits saillants en fiscalité canadienne; Tax for the Owner-Manager/Actualités fiscales pour les propriétaires exploitants; Canadian Tax Focus, which is written by and for young practitioners; and Brian J. Arnold's online column, The Arnold Report.
The Douglas J. Sherbaniuk Research Centre, located in the Foundation's Toronto office, contains one of the largest publicly accessible collections of tax information in the world. The centre's holdings include contemporary and historical materials on Canadian and international tax, public finance, and fiscal policy. The centre also houses a complete collection of the Foundation's publications. Research assistance services are provided to members and to the public in person, by telephone, and through the Foundation's website feature, "Ask a Librarian."
The Foundation has long been respected by the Canadian and international tax community and the taxpaying public for its objectivity, its analysis of current tax issues, its concern for the improvement of the Canadian tax system, and its significant contribution to the development of fiscal and public finance policy.{{citation needed, date=November 2014
External links
Canadian Tax Foundation websiteFondation canadienne de fiscalité
Taxation in Canada
Foundations based in Canada
Tax practitioner associations