The recent decision in Canada v. Colitto (2020 FCA 70) has seen the FCA weigh in on a huge issue for so called “derivative assessment” of directors and other person potentially at risk for a corporate taxpayer’s tax liability. With the financial pressures of COVID 19, this may come as bad news for corporate directors!
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They say that the “devil is in the details”.
An individual buying a run-down house, fixing it up, and living in it a while, and then selling for a tidy income tax exempt profit (the house being the individual’s principal residence) sounds like a recipe for success. And there may be nothing wrong with that for either income tax or GST/HST purposes!
Repeat that 21 times in a row, and you may have a different kettle of fish.
In an earlier blog, we covered the oft-forgotten power of the CRA to issue Requirements for Information (“RFIs”) which can be used to compel a third party to deliver evidence in its possession to the CRA. The CRA then uses that evidence to determine if another taxpayer (typically a customer or supplier of the third party) has unremitted tax or undeclared income.
An oft-forgotten power of the CRA is its ability to issue a Requirement for Information (“RFI”) which compels a third party to turn over evidence which the CRA can use to determine if another taxpayer has met its obligations under the Canada’s tax laws. This power also extends to “unnamed” persons, where the CRA does not know the exact identity of who may be in violation of the law but knows that the third party possesses information on that person. In this “unnamed” person situation, the CRA must obtain court approval before they issue the RFI.
A recent case before the Federal Court dealt with this very issue.
When assessing a taxpayer’s income, the CRA has an often-overlooked auditing power that allows it to consider a taxpayer’s net worth at specific points in time and use it to calculate the taxpayer’s unreported income. This is called a ‘net-worth assessment’. This alternative audit methodology is often employed when the CRA finds that the books and records of the taxpayer are either incomplete or unreliable—and can result in assessments on undeclared income and unremitted GST/HST!