On March 9th, 2010, the Ontario Court of Appeal released its decision in Danso-Coffey v. Ontario, 2010 ONCA 171. The case deals with an individual who is named a director of a corporation without her consent or knowledge. Danso-Coffey was owned and incorporated by Ms. Danso-Coffey’s brother. Without her knowledge, she was named one of [...]

Earlier this month, the Federal Court of Appeal released its decision in Canada v. J. Hudon Enterprises Ltd., 2010 FCA 37, a case that asks whether, in the context of horse racing, the proportion of prize money awarded to drivers and trainers after a successful performance at the track is subject to GST.
Race tracks offer [...]

A fundamental tenet of Canadian tax law, as stated in Commissioners of Inland Revenue v. Duke of Westminster, [1936] A.C. 1 (H.L.), is that a taxpayer is entitled to make any lawful arrangement that he or she sees fit in order to reduce his or her liability to tax. The General Anti-Avoidance Rule (”GAAR”), at s. [...]

On December 4th, the Tax Court of Canada released its decision in GE Capital v. The Queen 2009 TCC 563, dealing with transfer price deductions. GE Capital was anticipated as a major decision relating to transfer pricing and inter-company financial transactions. Consequently, the court conducted a thorough analysis of the different transfer pricing methodologies and [...]

The only surprising thing about the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in Quebec (Revenue) v. Caisse populaire Desjardins de Montmagny, 2009 SCC 49, is that the Quebec Superior Court at first instance found in favour of the Crown in all three cases from which the appeals arose.
The issue in C.P. Desjardins de Montmagny was [...]

Offshore trusts have become an essential element of successful tax planning. Trusts are used as tax planning vehicles as they are considered a separate legal entity from the individual. Thus, the income and assets of the trust are excluded from the individual’s estate for tax purposes. A previously successful, but now uncertain, strategy had used [...]

Imagine the following scenario:
Bob owns a house in a town in Quebec. In 2020, Quebec passes legislation to the effect that no municipality may increase property taxes by more than 10% each year. In 2022, citing the need for higher revenues to account for an increase in police services due to rising crime, the town [...]

Offshore trusts are major tax-planning and estate-planning tools which can be used to protect assets from taxation and to defer accrued capital gains for a long term. For all such planning tools to work, however, the “offshore” aspect of the trust—that is to say its non-Canadian residence—has to be a central feature of the structure. [...]

On February 25, 2005, Tsiaprailis v. Canada, [2005] 1 S.C.R. 113 was released by the SCC. This appeal involves an income tax case that considers whether a portion of a lump sum payment based on an amount owing for past disability benefits is made “pursuant to a disability insurance plan”, and hence taxable under s. [...]