CRA T3010 Canadian Charity Returns Data

The T3010 is the tax return that must be filed by all registered Canadian charities under the Income Tax act. Canadian charities are tax-exempt, but the CRA collects T3010 data and renders it publically available so that governments, private donors, and the general public know what charities are doing and how charities are using their resources.

The main penalty for not filing a tax return is the revoking of a charity’s charitable status.  Having a charitable status allows the charity to be tax-exempt and to be able to issue tax receipts that allow donors to reduce the amount of income tax they pay.

As of June 1, 2019, returns could be filed on paper or electronically, but prior to then, all returns were filed on paper. Charities all have different fiscal period end dates, and the T3010 return must be filed within 6 months of the charity’s fiscal period end date.

The T3010 itself collects information on a charity’s programs, fundraising, financial accounts, employees and volunteers, activities outside Canada, and political activities. Charities are also mailed Form TF725, the Registered Charity Basic Information Sheet. The TF725 is mailed to charities already filled out with information from the CRA’s records. Charities are asked to review the TF725 and report any changes or inaccuracies each year, and attach it to their T3010. Information from the TF725 is in the IDENT tables in the raw data. Charities also need to include Form T1235, the Directors, Trustees and Like Officials Worksheet, which collects a list of the charity’s directors and trustees. If applicable, charities also submit a list of the people and organizations to whom they made donations in Form T1236, Qualified donees worksheet/ Amounts provided to other organizations. 

The data cleaned and hosted here is the T3010, TF725, T1235, and T1236. The RC232 Ontario Corporations Information Act Annual Return and T2081 Excess Corporate Holdings Worksheet for Private Foundation’s forms are also part of a charity’s tax return in some circumstances, but data from those forms is not cleaned or hosted here.

The SEAL Lab T3010 data is currently available for download from the SEAL Dataverse site. Below are links to register and get access to this data:

Register for free access to T3010 Data           Browse CRA T3010 Charity Returns Data (2003 to Current)