Unfortunately, taxpayers sometimes play fast and loose with the legalities surrounding family trusts. Sometimes trustees will purport to make distributions from a trust to its beneficiaries. The beneficiaries treat the amounts received as income for tax purposes, but then those…
Burden of proof
Owen J, in Morrison v R, 2018 TCC 220, writes the following about the burden of proof relating to the Minister’s assumptions: The Federal Court of Appeal makes two important points in these decisions [Transocean Offshore Ltd. v R,…
File storage fees
Retired, or soon-to-be retired, lawyers will be happy to know that Hamilton’s own Justice Bocock has held that fees paid for file storage by a retired lawyer are deductible even though the lawyer is no longer earning business income. Sounds…
Avoiding 84.1(2.1)
Jin Wen and Michelle Dickinson, “Are Shares Tainted Forever Under Subsection 84.1(2.1)?”, 8:4 Cdn Tax Focus (Nov 2018), discusses the rule in subsection 84(2.1), which grinds PUC as if a vendor had claimed the capital gain exemption but never does,…
Offshore account explored
The taxpayer in Canaada (National Revenue) v Stankovic, 2018 FC 462, had held a bank account in Switzerland that French authorities disclosed to the CRA under the French treaty. The French authorities, it appears, had obtained the information about the…
Residence of a foreign corporation
Landbouwbedrijf Backx BV v R, 2018 TCC 142, considered the residence of corporation under the laws of the Netherlands whose director was resident in that country but whose only shareholders were resident in Canada. In respect of Backx BV’s place…
Odd Space
In Laliberté v R, 2018 TCC 186, the Tax Court considered whether the controlling shareholder of Cirque du Soleil had received a $38 million shareholder benefit for a trip he took to the International Space Station that was paid for…
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…
Specified investment business
In Rocco Gagliese Productions Inc. v R, 2018 TCC 136, the corporate taxpayer employed an individual who wrote and recorded music on an active and continuous basis. The taxpayer received royalty income from SOCAN for this work. The CRA took…
Dividend refunds and taxpayer relief
In Bonnybrook Industrial Park Development Co. Ltd. v. Canada (National Revenue), 2018 FCA 136, the taxpayer failed to file tax returns for multiple years, which meant that it was beyond the three-year deadline for claiming a dividend refund. The taxpayer…