The court upheld gross negligence penalties in Fransen v R, 2023 TCC 107, a Fiscal Arbitrators case, because the taxpayer had been wilfully blind (the test for which is discussed at paras 9ff) and because he had not bothered to…
Fair market value is a fact
In R v Preston, 2023 FCA 178, rev’g 2021 TCC 79, the court (per Monaghan JA) held that fair market value was a fact that could be pleaded by the Crown as an assumption.
GAAR changes bad
Subsection 245(3) will be amended so that a transaction will be an “avoidance transaction” if one of its main purposes is to obtain a tax benefit. Many more transactions will be avoidance transactions because tax considerations always play a major…
Challenging the underlying assessment
Yesterday, Amit Ummat gave an excellent short presentation about director liability under the Income Tax Act and Excise Tax Act at the HLA’s 16th Corporate-Commercial seminar. He referred to Duque v R, 2020 FCA 73, in which Webb JA said…
STEP submissions re AMT
STEP has made some submissions (pdf) to Finance about the new AMT rules in the August 4 draft legislation as they apply to trusts. Because most trusts will not be entitled to claim the basic exemption for AMT purposes, they…
No accountant privilege
In Gaudreau c R, 2023 CCI 115, the Court was willing to consider the argument that an accountant’s planning memorandum need not be produced on discovery because it was not relevant. After duly considering the matter, the Court concluded the…
Resurrection
In Canada (Attorney General) v 18335898 Alberta Ltd (Whitecap Energy Inc), 2023 ABKB 357, the taxpayer wound-up and dissolved in 2020. All of its assets were transferred to its parent. The CRA audited the taxpayer’s 2017 and 2018 taxation years.…
Form of objection
I have written before about the Tax Court’s tendency to give a liberal interpretation to what constitutes a “notice of objection”. I am a little surprised, then, that the CRA made an application to quash the appeal of the taxpayers…
T2057 amended
The CRA has amended the T2057 to make several significant changes. The form must now be accompanied by a calculation of the tax cost of the subject property, and the form must indicate whether an “independent assessment” of fair market…
Reportable Transactions and Adviser Fees
Last year, the Department of Finance proposed amendments to section 237.3 of the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the “Act”) that reduced to one the number of “hallmarks” that would trigger reporting on an avoidance transaction. In response, the Joint Committee…