Please see this post for an interesting perspective on some of the 2014 Budget’s cross-border measures by my colleague, Jonathan Garbutt of Garbutt Tax Law. In addition, the Tax Lawyers Alliance, Garbutt Tax Law and EMG Transfer Pricing Experts are…
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).
Reason and the T1135?
The Tax Court has vacated penalties for failing to file a T1135 on time for a year where tax was otherwise not payable. See Douglas v R, 2012 TCC 73, a decision of Justice Woods under the informal procedure.
Antle and Garron
The Federal Court of Appeal has released its reasons for dismissing the appeal of the taxpayer in Antle. See Antle v. The Queen, 2010 FCA 280. The reasons are also now available online in St. Michael Trust Corp. v. The…
T1135
A taxpayer is required to file a form T1135 in respect of foreign property, including foreign securities, even if the securities are held in a Canadian brokerage account. If you fail to file the form in these circumstances, and the…
Double Taxation in US Health Care Reform
A recent Tax Court of Canada decision raises concerns of double taxation in proposed US health care reforms. The case is Niemeijer v. The Queen, 2009 TCC 624.
Failure to File Penalty
Subsection 162(2.1) of the Income Tax Act provides for a penalty for a non-resident corporation that fails to file a return and that it is liable to a penalty under subsections 162(1) or (2). The penalties provided by the latter subsections are computed as a percentage of tax payable. What happens if no tax is payable and so no penalty is applicable under the latter subsections? Does the 162(2.1) penalty still apply?
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.
Michigan taxes
Michael Van Severen, who is a member of the cross-border tax services group at KPMG in Hamilton, was kind enough to forward to me a “Tax Tip-Off” (I thought it said “Tax Rip-Off” when I first received it). The tip…
Canada Approves
According to the Department of Finance website, “Canada Supports U.S. Technical Explanation of the Fifth Protocol to the Canada-United States Income Tax Convention“.