Do board members of a charity face personal liability for tax filing failures?

This is a real risk area for charity board members, and one worth taking seriously rather than assuming the charity's corporate structure automatically shields directors personally. Directors of corporations generally can face personal liability connected to certain unremitted tax obligations, such as source deductions and GST/HST a corporation fails to remit, and charity boards should not assume they're categorically exempt from exposure connected to their organization's tax compliance failures simply because the organization is a charity rather than a typical business.

Because charity-specific director liability isn't governed by one single, clearly stated rule the way some corporate liability is, this is an area where getting proper advice matters more than trying to reason it out from general principles. Board members who are hands-off about a charity's financial and tax filings — treating that side of governance as someone else's job entirely — are taking on risk they may not realize exists.

Practically, this means charity boards should stay genuinely engaged with their organization's tax filings and remittances, ask direct questions about compliance status at board meetings, and treat any sign of a filing problem, remittance shortfall, or CRA correspondence as something the whole board needs to know about and address promptly, not just the treasurer or bookkeeper.