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).
How long to retain records?
In Hill Fai Investments Ltd v R, 2015 TCC 167, the court held that the six-year period for which taxpayers must retain books and records begins with the year in which a claim is made for which the books and…
Spouses as directors
Apparently, somebody thought it would be a good idea to appoint a spouse as a director of a corporation in whose business she was not involved in order to insulate her husband, the true directing mind of the business, from…
Safe income and trusts
The CRA accepts that a safe income dividend paid from Opco to a trust-shareholder, which then allocates the dividend to Holdco, one of the trust’s beneficiaries, will be added to Holdco’s safe income. Technical interpretation 2014-0538061C6 dated October 10, 2014,…
Proposal problems for ABILs
In Gaumond v R, 2014 TCC 339, an informal procedure case, the taxpayer, as part of a proposal under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, forgave a debt owed to him by a CCPC he controlled. The Tax Court denied the…
No late-filed eligible dividend designations
Opco pays a dividend in year One, but it doesn’t believe it has any GRIP at that time, and so no eligible dividend designation is made in respect of the dividend. The CRA later reassesses Opco, and one of the…
New trust rules
Natalie Woodbury, “Testamentary Trusts: The New Rules” (2015) 63:1 Canadian Tax Journal 269-89 is a clear summary of the new rules relating to testamentary trusts and life-interest trusts. The author asks whether the new rules will lead to an increased…