You file your T1135 for a taxation, and for your trouble the CRA responds with a questionnaire about one of the investments shown on the form. The questionnaire requires the following information (which I have taken almost verbatim from the questionnaire itself):
Notes on Shares of a Specified Class
In applying the association rules in subsection 256(1) of the Income Tax Act (Canada), one can ignore shares of a specified class as defined in subsection 256(1.1). The CRA has said the following about that definition. Regarding the requirements in…
Currency swaps
Craig Burley has written a good short post on George Weston Limited v R, 2015 TCC 42, a case argued for the taxpayer by my old friend from law school days, Sal Mirandola.
55(5)(f) designations are unnecessary?
Neal Armstrong reports on the CRA pronouncement regarding 55(5)(f) designations at the 2014 STEP Roundtable: CRA stated that its long-standing practice “is to apply subsection 55(2) only to the excess of the taxable dividend paid on a share over the…
CRA Duty of Care?
In Scheuer v R, 2015 FC 74, Mr Justice Diner dismissed an appeal from an order of a prothonotary in which he dismissed a motion to strike a statement of claim against the CRA for failing to warn taxpayers adequately about a particular donation tax shelter. The Court agreed that the duty alleged is novel, but it is not “plain and obvious” that a claim based on the duty will fail.
Bank-assisted tax evasion?
The CBC is reporting that “British bank HSBC helped hundreds of Canadians hide Swiss accounts from authorities to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes, CBC News has learned.”
Officially induced error
The CBC is reporting that “ne of every four business callers who ask for tax help from the Canada Revenue Agency’s call centres gets bad information, an internal survey suggests.” I don’t find this finding surprising, but the moral of…
MGS on strike?
The following is from an OPSEU press release issued last week: The union representing 35,000 frontline Ministry employees who work directly for the Ontario government announced today that bargaining representatives of the Ontario Government have taken a significant step towards…
Burden of proof and gross negligence
In Brown v R, 2014 FCA 301, Webb JA had no trouble dismissing the taxpayer’s claim that the Income Tax Act (Canada) was void for uncertainty because, for example, it did not provide an adequate definition of “person”. The Court,…
Backdating trusts
In Al-Hossain v R, 2014 TCC 379, the Court wrote: The creation of a trust must be properly documented containing the requisite elements of a trust, dated, signed and in existence prior to or contemporaneous with the matter that is…