Automobile benefits are fish in a smaller barrel for CRA auditors. If all else fails, the auditor can recover something for his or her time by reassessing them. (My experience on the subject is probably not representative. Nevertheless, it’s the rare reassessment I contest where some kind of benefit isn’t reassessed for a company-owned car.)
A client of mine shows us how it’s done. (I’m telling this story with his permission.) His company was subject to a desk audit for $120,000 of vehicle expenses incurred over two years. The CRA gave him 30 days to respond. He responded in 20 days—without consulting me, I might add—with 2,000 pages of materials. The result? The CRA did not adjust one penny of the expenses claimed.
He also volunteered to me that, in seventeen years of business, his company has never been late with a single remittance of health tax, WSIB (across ten provinces), HST/GST, CPP/EI or employee income tax.
