Sorbara v. Canada (Attorney General), 2008 CanLII 61246 (ON S.C.) is an interesting case about class action proceedings and Tax Court appeals. The moral of the story: the Tax Court has exclusive jurisdiction over tax matters even though it (probably)…
What in the world?
What world does the CRA live in that it could think it would be a good idea to take a 78-year-old woman to Court under section 160 for cashing cheques for her disabled son? See Gambino v. The Queen, 2008 TCC 601.
Process
The CRA and the Crown like to say (or at least sometimes they act as if), in the objection and Tax Court appeal process, all that matters is whether the assessment in issue is correct. Justice J.E. Hershfield, in Wood v. The Queen, 2008 TCC 105, begged to differ.
De-registered
The CRA has revoked the status of two more charities that had participated in tax shelters.
Insurance
The taxation of insurance policies is a world of its own, and in my experience not many advisers seem able to explain that world clearly. The virtue of White v. The Queen, 2008 TCC 414, an informal procedure case, is…
Lipson
The Supreme Court released its decision in Lipson today: see Lipson v. The Queen, 2009 SCC 1. The CanLII link to the case appears to be down right now, but it’ll probably be fixed later.
EBay released
eBay Canada Ltd. v. Canada (National Revenue), 2008 FCA 348 is now available on CanLII. The Court held that information on servers in the U.S. is not foreign-based information.
Procedure
In Corsi v. The Queen, 2008 TCC 472, the CRA sent a 160 assessment to the taxpayer by registered mail in June, 2004, to her home address, which was not the address the CRA had on file for the taxpayer. For whatever reason, the taxpayer didn’t pick up the mail, and it was returned to the CRA. The CRA did nothing more with the assessment, but some time thereafter CRA Collections started calling the taxpayer. This was the first she heard about the assessment. The CRA then mailed a copy of the assessment to the taxpayer’s accountant in October, 2005, more than one year and 90 days after the first assessment was supposedly sent.
Directors and revival, again
In Leger v. The Queen, 2007 TCC 322 (which I discussed here) the Court held that the dissolution of a corporation that was later revived did not engage the two-year limitation period otherwise applicable under subsection 227.1(4) of the Income Tax Act. Mr. Justice Bowie arrived at a different conclusion in Aujla v. The Queen, 2007 TCC 764, in respect of a company under the British Columbia Company Act.
Jeopardy
Generally speaking, the CRA cannot collect an income tax debt from a taxpayer while the taxpayer disputes the assessment from which the debt is derived before the Tax Court renders a judgment on the assessment. The CRA, however, can apply to a court for a jeopardy collection order “ex parte” (without the taxpayer having the right to appear to contest the application) that will allow the CRA to proceed to take collection action. The taxpayer can then apply to have the ex parte order set aside. In Alexander (Re), 2008 FC 902, the taxpayer succeeded in having the order overturned by the Federal Court.