C.J. McCarty Inc. v R, 2015 TCC 201, is a good recent analysis of whether the personal services business rules applied to a taxpayer in light of Wiebe Door and Sagaz. Bruce Russell, “McCarty – A Personal Services Business?” Tax…
Shareholder agreements and de jure control
Will a shareholder agreement that permits a minority shareholder to elect the majority of the corporation’s board confer control on the minority shareholder? The Tax Court in Kruger Wayagamack Inc. v R, 2015 TCC 90, said not if the minority…
Stock options and death
From Andrew Morreale, “Stock Option Deduction Is Available on Death” Canadian Tax Focus 5:3 (August 2015): An employment benefit in respect of unexercised employee stock options that arises on death is eligible for the paragraph 110(1)(d) deduction through the use…
Alberta trust vindicated
What does it take to make an Alberta trust “work” in light of Fundy Settlement v Canada, 2012 SCC 14? From Colin Poon, “Interprovincial Tax Planning Using Trusts Upheld”, Canadian Tax Focus 5:3 (August 2015) re Discovery Trust v Canada…
Crooked preparer jail
I’ve complained before about crooked preparers who file false expense or donation claims for (sometimes) clueless taxpayers. The taxpayers get the refund, pay the preparer’s fee (which is often pretty generous) and then are reassessed for the bogus claims (with…
CRA charity nonsense—it’s insidious
Craig Burley is Unhappy about a recent CRA advisory on registered charities and partisan political activities, which advisory includes the following gem: When a charity invites comments on its website, blogs, or on social media, it should monitor them for…
Two HST items
I stay away from HST matters generally because it is an area that is more than complicated enough to merit its own specialists. Accordingly, I don’t blog about HST much, but here are two items worth looking at: Jennifer Muirhead,…
SCC dismisses Guindon appeal
The Supreme Court has dismissed the taxpayer’s appeal in Guindon v R, 2015 SCC 41.
Delle Donne v HMQ
The Financial Post has a report in it today on Delle Donne v R, 2015 TCC 150, in which yours truly acted as counsel for the taxpayer. Translation of Bill Innes’ comment in the Post article: even a chimp could…
Accounting proposal postponed
KPMG reports that the implementation of a proposal to require corporations to treat typical freeze shares as debt (with an offsetting special debit to equity) for financial statement purposes has been postponed to January 1, 2018 (from January 1, 2016).