In Suffolk v. The Queen, 2010 TCC 295 (an informal procedure case), the Court undertook an interesting review of the caselaw relating to the validity of notices of assessment that contain errors and the form required for a valid notice of assessment. The short story is as follows:
[17] Contrary to the position taken by the Appellant, the Federal Court of Appeal in Stephens v. The Queen [[1988] DTC 1170 at 1171] has held that there is no prescribed form for a notice of assessment issued under the Act:
Subsection 152(2) requires the Minister to “send a notice of assessment” to the taxpayer. Nowhere in the Act do we find prescriptions relating to the form of that notice. It follows, in our view, that the form of the notice does not matter and that the subsection merely requires that the notice be expressed in terms that will clearly make the taxpayer aware of the assessment made by the Minister.
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