I wrote about whether an officer or director of a corporation could represent it in a Tax Court appeal in a post I wrote about White Star Copper Mines Limited v R, 2007 TCC 669. A more recent decision appears to deviate from the approach taken in White Star.
In White Star, Justice Rossiter (as he then was), in refusing the application of a corporation to be represented by a non-lawyer, reviewed the “special circumstances” he felt should exist before the corporation could be represented by a non-lawyer. Interestingly, he included in his list the ability of the corporate appellant to pay a lawyer.
Justice Webb took a different approach in 1069616 Alberta Ltd. v R, 2011 TCC 431. Justice Webb first pointed out that the requirement for “special circumstances” in subsection 30(2) had been removed by an amendment to the Tax Court of Canada Rules (General Procedure) in 2007. As a result, according to Justice Webb, “the cases that should be reviewed are those from a jurisdiction which has a rule which is the same as the current version of subsection 30(2) of the Rules.” Justice Webb then reviewed a number of Ontario cases because the Ontario Rules contain similar wording. Based on those cases, Justice Webb specifically eschewed ability to pay as a relevant factor and concluded that the corporate appellant before him could be represented by one of its owners.
Justice Webb proceeded not to award costs on the motion because the Appellant did not ask for them—almost certainly because the non-lawyer representative of the Appellant didn’t know to do so!
