The authors discuss R v DAC Investment Holdings Inc., 2026 FCA 35, rev’g 2024 TCC 63. They conclude that, in a GAAR analysis, an overly-broad characterization of a provision or a mere description of its effect will not correctly express its object, spirit and purpose…
Harvard Properties detailed notes
Harvard Properties 2024 TCC 139 per Boyle TCJ General procedure Under appeal A-382-24; A-388-24 “Another Section 160 Tax Avoidance Scam: Harvard Properties” Brian Arnold report 296 Jan 14/25 * Facts The following is a paraphrase of the facts set out…
Accessing stranded ACB ok under GAAR
In 3295940 CANADA INC. v R, 2024 FCA 42, the taxpayer appealed the application of the GAAR to a series of transactions that used ACB in shares of a corporation that the purchaser refused to purchase. The transactions, in effect,…
Deans Knight applied
In R v. MMV Capital Partners Inc., 2023 FCA 234, the Court applied GAAR to a scheme where five of the original shareholders of the taxpayer maintained de jure control but an arm’s length party acquired 99% of the corporation’s…
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…
GAAR object and spirit
The author provides a summary of the detailed analysis undertaken by the Court in Gladwin Realty Corporation v Canada, 2020 FCA 142 to determine the object and spirit of the provisions of the Income Tax Act (Canada) at issue in…
CDA timing and GAAR
If a corporation triggers a capital gain, pays a capital dividend using the resulting CDA balance and then triggers a capital loss that, in effect, offsets the gain, does the GAAR apply? In Gladwin Realty Corporation v R, 2019 TCC…
GAAR to be applied only when benefit realized
The CRA, per Wild v R, 2018 FCA 114, accepts that the GAAR can be applied only after the benefit has been realized. Neal Armstrong summary of Alexandra MacLean, “CRA Audits of Large Corporations – The view from ILBD” November…
Purpose of 84.1
In E Hamelin, “Surplus Stripping: A New Approach?” 18:4 Tax for the Owner-Manager (October 18, 2018), the author notes that the Court in Pomerleau v R, 2018 FCA 129 seemed to treat the one-half portion of a capital gain that…
GAAR and corporate surplus
In Pomerleau c R, 2016 CCI 228, the Tax Court applied GAAR to a series of transactions that used the stop loss rule in 40(3.6) to create basis not caught by the PUC grind in 84.1, which in turn allowed…