Tax & Trade Blog

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TCC: DISCOVERY QUESTIONS NEED ANSWERS!

BROAD DISCOVERY RULES CAN WORK FOR TAXPAYERS TOO

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Taxpayers who appeal to the Tax Court of Canada (“TCC”) under the General Procedure must submit to Examinations for Discovery (“Discovery”) and must answer “any proper question relevant to any matter in issue”: see Rule 95(1). That means virtually any question relevant to the appeal must be answered, aside from those subject to Solicitor-Client Privilege. This obligation continues even if the relevant business has been sold, the knowledgeable employees have left, or key documents are hard to find.

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TCC: THE CRA CAN HAVE ITS CAKE AND EAT IT TOO!

TCC CONFIRMS THE CRA CAN TAX HOUSE FLIPS WHILE DENYING OFFSETTING ITCs

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When auditing many isolated residential real estate developments, the Canada Revenue Agency ("CRA") often insists on having its cake and eating it too: it assesses GST on the full selling price of a newly constructed home but denies the vendor every single Input Tax Credit ("ITC") on their selling costs.

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CAN I KEEP MY TAX APPEAL CONFIDENTIAL?

FCA CONFIRMS THAT TAX COURT CAN SEAL DOCUMENTS AT DISCOVERY STAGE!

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When initiating complicated Tax Appeals, one of the questions that sophisticated clients often have (often unfortunately well into the process) is whether they can keep sensitive commercial documents “confidential”. That seems like a simple question, but it has a long and somewhat turgid answer involving the Open Court Principle and special rules in the Tax and Federal Courts for confidentiality-orders.

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CHATBOTS ARE DANGEROUS FOR PRIVILEGE!

US COURT CONCLUDES USE OF AI IN LITIGATION MAY PUT PRIVILEGE AT RISK

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Canadian Courts are still trying to wrap their minds around AI and Solicitor-Client Privilege, with not a lot out there right now. The US appears to be on the forefront of this issue, however, with a District Court decision in United States v. Heppner (No. 25 Cr. 503, S.D.N.Y. 2026) (“Heppner”) highlighting the dangers of clients relying on AI for their legal analysis – or legal defences – without first engaging a dues paying lawyer.

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GST/HST REVERSE CHARGE SYSTEMS

SENIOR FINANCE OFFICIALS SEEM TO CONFIRM MORE ON THE HORIZON

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Mid-summer, the Department of Finance released important new draft legislation, putting in place a “reverse charge system” to deal with fraud in the Telecom industry. More recently – at the Canadian Tax Foundation’s Inaugural Commodity Tax Symposium – senior officials seemed to have suggested that more could be coming to deal with similar issues in other industries.