In the headlines today: the “Harper Government announces new requirements for Canadians with offshore property and income”. Accountants have been waiting for this announcement in fear and trembling. The added work at tax time will not be insignificant.
Paying whistleblowers
The CRA has traditionally not offered rewards to whistleblowers, and so it is not surprising that they “missed out” recently on a chance to obtain information on possible tax cheats. Of course, the policy has now changed. It’d be interesting…
Legal project management
Legal project management (LPM) is all the rage in certain quarters. It’s not a new idea, of course. I remember talking about it with some of the lawyers in the large firm I worked for in Toronto in the mid-90s. There wasn’t much appetite for LPM software at the time, I think in part because some of the tools available then appeared too inflexible for the typical M&A deal.
Pendulum swing
Redeemer Foundation v Canada (National Revenue), 2008 SCC 46, makes it clear that the CRA has broad powers to demand information relating to unnamed third parties, sometimes even without the need for prior judicial authorization (as per subsection 231.2(2)). Two…
Rectification denied
From the “There But for the Grace of God Go I” file, see Kanji v AG Canada, 2013 ONSC 781. It’s striking that the trial judge was so troubled by the lack of supporting evidence from Mr Kanji’s professional advisers…
The Search for Revenue
The trend continues. The CBC made a big deal (and rightly so) out of a disclosure of a huge amount of data on offshore bank accounts made to the director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. It appears that German tax authorities have purchased a CD containing information on deposits made to Swiss bank accounts. The authorities purchased the data for €4 million but they expect to recover €500 million in taxes using the data. That’s a pretty good return on their investment (even taking into account the collections costs).
Meaning of “active business”
David Bazar was good enough to forward to me an interesting case on the meaning of “active business” in the Income Tax Act. In Ollenberger v R, 2013 FCA 74, the Court was called on to consider whether the use of the word “active” in the phrase required something more than just any business that is not a “specified investment business” or a “personal services business”. The Court held that “active” did no such thing.
New VD policy
The CRA has published an updated version of Information Circular IC00-1 (IC00-1R3 Voluntary Disclosure Program).
Tax in the news
Tax is really in the news this week. The Current was asking whether Canada needs to get tough on tax evasion. The CBC says that the CRA is getting tough on home offices (when did they ever go easy on…
Over there
Offshore is in the news again. I wonder whether these studies confuse offshore accounts with tax evasion, at least to some degree. Canadian law doesn’t prevent one from keeping money in a tax haven bank account provided the existence of…