30 Months In Jail For Facilitating False Donation Tax Scheme

The Court of Appeal for Ontario has just upheld the conviction and 30-month jail sentence of a tax return preparer who facilitated false charitable donation claims.  The Court in R. v. Ajise considered a situation where Mr. Ajise prepared tax returns claiming that his clients had made over $5 million in cash and in-kind donations to a Canadian registered charity called Tractors for Daily Bread (the "Charity").  The Canada Revenue Agency ("CRA") concluded that none of these supposed gifts made their way to the Charity, taking into consideration the Charity's T3010 information return which showed a few hundred dollars of income in the period.  Mr. Ajise worked out of the Charity's offices.  In addition to fees paid to him by his clients for preparing their tax returns, he also received payments from the clients of 10-15% of their supposed donations.