Tax & Trade Blog

In the recent case of Club Intrawest v. Her Majesty the Queen (2017 FCA 151), the Federal Court of Appeal (the "FCA") was faced with a unique fact pattern not contemplated by the legislation. In dealing with this unusual situation, the FCA did what common law courts do best, and improvised a solution which it considered both fair and legally justifiable. In the process, the FCA has introduced a new gloss on the common law "single versus multiple supply analysis" and held that even where a recipient is only charged a single amount of consideration, a court may nevertheless find that there were two separate supplies, each with different tax treatment.

The issue of single versus multiple supplies in the context of the GST is the subject of frequent litigation.  This is likely attributable to the fairly fact-driven analysis employed by the courts in determining the existence of single or multiple supplies and the arguably subjective nature of the test applied to those facts. 

The recent Tele-Mobile decision (2015 TCC 197) will likely do little to reduce the frequency of this issue coming before the courts; however, it does provide some additional clarity on how the issue should be analyzed.