Effective. Accessible. Responsive
March 30 Update John Campbell, in a comment posted below, points out that paragraph 110.6(15)(b) likely provides an escape from the “trap” that I discuss below at least insofar that one is concerned about whether the shares of Holdco qualify for the exemption.
I was helping a fellow tax professional with a situation like the following where I think I almost stumbled into a trap relating to the $750,000 capital gain exemption.
I always hesitate to take a client’s money for a relief or fairness application because the CRA is usually pretty unsympathetic and the courts not much more helpful. In two relatively recent cases, the courts found that the CRA decision-making process in response to relief applications had been flawed, but the courts refused to provide a different result or order the Minister to reconsider the matter.
In Rémillard v R, 2011 TCC 327, the Court spent some time considering whether an employee is required to include an amount in income in respect of a loan advanced to him by his corporate employer if the loan is not a “commercial debt obligation” as defined in subsection 80(1).
Mr. Giuseppe Tarascio is not having much luck convincing the tax courts that his gambling losses should be deductible from his income for tax purposes. See Tarascio v R, 2012 FCA 30, aff’g a decision of Associate Chief Justice Rossiter dismissing the taxpayer’s appeal.
Bryan Walters has drawn my attention to an interesting CRA technical interpretation (2011-0404641C6 or CCH Window ¶10,832) in which the CRA states that the provisions of a shareholder agreement might reduce the value of freeze shares that otherwise have the “right” attributes for the purposes of a freeze (see “Freeze Shares“).