Tax & Trade Blog

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ONTARIO'S ELECTRICITY EXPORT TAX

PREMIER FORD ANNOUNCES EXPORT TAX, BUT WILL IT BE LEGAL?

On March 4, 2025, Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford announced further a retaliatory measure to the recently announced Trump tariffs, indicating that Ontario would apply a tax on exports of electricity to the United States (“US”). While that announcement might make many Ontarians (and Canadians) feel good about "taking a stance", one wonders whether Ontario has the legal powers to do what it says it is going to do.

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EHT FOR "RELATED" EMPLOYERS

GETTING THE FULL EXEMPTION AMOUNT

Employer Health Tax (“EHT”) is a part of our overall Indirect Tax practice, and a common EHT question we get is whether two corporations are “associated employers” for the tax.  Being associated is problematic, as it essentially makes each employer pay more than if they were unrelated. 

While this may seem like a straightforward bedrock question (is "Aco" associated with "Bco"), there is some confusion as to how the technical rules apply (even, it appears, at the Ontario Ministry of Finance (“MOF”) – at least based on some recent Ontario assessment positions that we have seen). 

After 35 years of practice in Tax and Trade, one thing I am sure of is that there are no “magic” answers for dealing with administrative delay by the Canada Revenue Agency (“CRA”) or the Canada Border Services Agency (“CBSA”).  

A recent decision of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (“CITT”) underscores this problem, and leaves taxpayers and importers in some potentially hard situations when faced by governmental inaction.

A couple of recent cases in the Federal Court of Appeal (“FCA”), which saw the taxpayer and importer, respectively, attempting to appeal earlier Court decisions, have emphasized that tax and trade litigation is a “one-shot deal”, where taxpayers (and importers on the trade side) are required to put their best foot forward in the lower Courts, and will be unlikely to get a second chance at making arguments before the FCA (or the lower Courts) if they do not do so.

Doostyar v. Canada

Doostyar v. Canada was a tax case, appealed to the FCA, in which the taxpayer’s position was that the Tax Court of Canada (“TCC”) erred by not accepting its additional submissions, post hearing.

As we have previously written here and here, a taxpayer’s debts can be imposed on their spouse or children through an assessment under section 160 of the Income Tax Act (“ITA”).  The Federal Court of Appeal has now drawn a line in the sand limiting the reach of such assessments with respect to the spouse of a tax debtor.

In Enns v. The King, 2025 FCA 14, the Court held that a survivor ceases to be the spouse of a deceased taxpayer for the purposes of section 160 of the ITA.  While the ruling is a win for survivors, it leaves open the question of how far the CRA’s assessment powers under section 160 may extend.