Articles 2021

Tax litigators often look at their careers compared to other lawyers and say “with tax law all that is at stake is money.” On the surface, this appears to be true because tax is about money, unlike criminal law where someone’s freedom can be at issue. However, it is important to acknowledge while tax is about money, it can be more than that to a client and we as tax lawyers need to be prepared for situations where a client’s mental health is at issue.

On December 14th, 2021, the Department of Finance released draft legislation for the Digital Services Tax Act (Act) alongside the Economic and Fiscal Update 2021. The Act imposes a digital services tax (DST) of 3% on annual revenues from large businesses providing certain digital services. The DST is slated to apply to certain revenues earned as of January 1st, 2022, but businesses will not be liable for the tax earlier than January 1st, 2024.

On November 26, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) rendered its judgment in Canada v. Alta Energy Luxembourg S.A.R.L., 2021 SCC 49. In a 6-to-3 majority decision, the SCC upheld the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal (“FCA”), finding that the general anti-avoidance rule (the “GAAR”) did not apply to an alleged “treaty shopping” arrangement undertaken by the taxpayer.

Supreme Court of Canada unanimously rules that Loblaw Financial Holdings Inc. was entitled to benefit from the “financial institution” exception in the “foreign accrual property income” tax rules.

This year's annual What You Missed While You Were Away program was organized and chaired by Lisa Watzinger and Hennadiy Kutsenko with presenters Joan Jung, Lesley L’Heureux, and Christopher Anderson.

Potential ACB increase as a result of a spin-off transaction is viewed by the CRA as subject to GAAR.

Eight commodity tax considerations for commercial landlords in Ontario.

In Tran v. The Queen, the Appellant successfully disputed a director's liability assessment by challenging the underlying assessment. The Appellant proved that the T4s relied upon by the Minister were overstated. The Crown did not challenge this evidence. As the Crown failed to adduce evidence to reduce the underlying assessment, the Tax Court concluded that the underlying assessment was incorrect and found in favour of the Appellant.

The Federal Court ordered that the Minister is authorized to impose on Coinsquare a requirement relating to unnamed persons.  The result is that Coinsquare must produce the requested documents and information about its customers to the CRA.

A review of the recent Federal Court of Appeal decision Canada (Attorney General) v. Honey Fashions Ltd..