The Boundary Community Food Bank received a surprise donation this month, with $15,940 unexpectedly deposited into its bank account.
The donation came from Vancouver Island resident Giles Peatfield, who has a long connection to the Boundary region, stated a news release from Linda Caron, secretary for the Boundary Community Food Bank and Peatfield’s neice. An opportunity arose to donate shares to a gold exploration company he owned and he took it to help out the non-profit organization.
Peatfield had a successful career as a geological engineer, working throughout B.C., elsewhere in Canada and globally, the release stated. Throughout his career, he maintained a connection to the Boundary region, through periodic geological consulting work on local projects and through visits to Caron, also a geological engineer, living in the area.
For a number of years, Giles consulted for a company exploring for gold in Burkina Faso, West Africa. In recognition for his work, he was granted options to purchase shares in the company. Through a couple of corporate reorganizations, and finally a takeover of the company, those shares increased in value substantially. About 15 years to the present. Giles is now comfortably retired and the shares significantly increased in value. Selling them would result in having to pay considerable capital gains tax (a tax charged on the difference between the deemed purchase price and the sale price of the shares).
As someone with a strong social conscience and not needing further income, he began looking at other options. A registered charity in Canada can accept shares as donations, which it can then sell. Since the recipient is a charity, the Federal government waives the requirement to pay any capital gains tax on the value of the shares. This seemed like a good option.
Peatfield and his wife, Terry live in Courtenay, BC near their daughter and family. Their niece Linda, also retired, is an active volunteer with the Boundary Community Food Bank in Grand Forks.
Since Linda’s involvement in the Food Bank, Giles has made regular cash donations to the food bank. He began exploring the possibility of donating his shares to them. Enter CanadaHelps, an organization whose mission is to “inform, inspire and connect charities and donors, with the causes they care about.” According to their website, 3,931,855 Canadians have donated $2,692,633,662 to Canadian charities using CanadaHelps.
The food bank is already connected with CanadaHelps and has many donors who use this forum to make monthly or one-time financial donations to the Food Bank with a simple click of the CanadaHelps button on the Food Bank’s website. CanadaHelps takes a small management fee, issues the charitable donation receipt to the donor, and deposits the funds to the food bank’s bank account, a transaction that’s easy for both the donor and the charity.
As Giles discovered, CanadaHelps also accepts donations of shares. They sell the shares, issue a charitable donation receipt to the donor and forward the proceeds of the sale of the shares on to the charity. The need for anyone to pay the capital gains tax is eliminated.
The result for the food bank is that the transaction is worth significantly more than if Peatfield had sold the shares, paid the tax owing, and then donated the remaining funds to the food bank.
