I’ve always been skeptical of the value of those lengthy paragraphs at the end of many email messages sent by professional firms that are meant to claim privilege, confidentiality and your first-born if you are the accidental recipient of the…
A Warning from the Court
The following article on the tax preparer penalties appeared in a recent issue of the HLA Journal.
The “third-party civil penalties” in the Income Tax Act (the “Act”) have been with us for some time now. When they were first introduced, they caused some consternation because they made tax advisers potentially liable with their clients for penalties for misstatements on tax returns. In my experience, these penalties have had the effect Finance was looking for when it introduced the penalties: most of the accountants with whom I deal are quite cautious when it comes to circumstances that might involve the application of the penalties. Perhaps they would be cautious anyway, but it is a rare discussion about a questionable or aggressive filing position for which a client is advocating where the accountant does not mention these penalties.
Excess capital dividends
Paul Hickey, in Canadian Tax Highlights (22:3, March 2014), notes that the CRA recently confirmed that it will defer processing an election to treat an excess capital dividend as a separate taxable dividend until any related objection under Part III…
Typography for Lawyers
I have an interest in typography based in a belief that, because our work product so often consists of the documents we produce (at least in the eyes of our clients), we lawyers should take extra care with the appearance…
Some recent rectification cases
Thanks to Craig Burley for pointing me to a recent newsletter article on McLean v McLean, 2013 ONCA 788. In the same vein, see also Neal Armstrong’s comment on Re: Pallen Trust, 2014 BCSC 305.
Tax Interpretations
Neal Armstrong, Abraham Leitner and Scott Armstrong have created Tax Interpretations, which is a very useful technical resource for those of us who must struggle with tax issues daily. The site includes access to CRA severed letters and summaries, posted…
Ponzi schemes
Ponzi schemes have some “interesting” tax consequences for their unfortunate victims. It seems that the schemes pose some challenges in the bankruptcy context as well. In Samji (Re), 2013 BCSC 2101, the Court approved a settlement under which some of…
CRA information flow
The OBA tax section sponsored a good session today on “Best Practices for Managing the Flow of Information to and from the Canada Revenue Agency”. A couple of interesting tidbits that came out: 1. Some folks at the CRA seem…
Family Law Again
The Ontario Court of Appeal has considered again whether property that was supposedly the subject of a gift should be excluded from a husband’s net family property for the purposes of the Family Law Act (Ontario): see Buttar v Buttar,…
Klundert loses again … and again
It appears Mr Klundert, about whom I wrote previously here, is not having any further luck in his court battles. The CRA reassessed him for unpaid taxes in respect of income he failed to declare and for which he was convicted on evasion charges. His appeal of the related civil reassessments to the Tax Court (Klundert v R, 2013 TCC 208) was dismissed recently because, among other things, the Court found the appeal to be an abuse of process.