2021

On December 13, 2017, the Canada Revenue Agency released a revised update of its memorandum on the GST/HST voluntary disclosures program. The new document, GST/HST Memorandum 16-5 Voluntary Disclosures Program, replaces a draft memorandum released June 16, 2017 that had attracted considerable criticism.

Concurrent criminal investigations and civil tax audits are quite common where the Canada Revenue Agency believes that a taxpayer has knowingly failed to report income or remit taxes owing.

In Club Intrawest (2017 FCA 151), the Federal Court of Appeal dealt with a complicated scenario that the Court thought had been overlooked by the architects of the Excise Tax Act.

Rounds 2 and 3 of the NAFTA 2.0 negotiations have recently concluded. It is still too early to know what a NAFTA 2.0 will look like, or even which issues will make it into the final agreement. However, we are getting a better sense of each country’s priority issues and know that any of the proposed changes to NAFTA could significantly impact the way in which Canadian organizations do business.

On Sept. 8, 2017, Canada’s Department of Finance released draft legislation to amend the Excise Tax Act (Canada) with regards to investment limited partnerships, and was accepting comments until Oct. 10, 2017.

On June 9, 2017, the Canada Revenue Agency confirmed that it intends to dramatically narrow the circumstances under which taxpayers may obtain relief from penalties and interest under the CRA’s Voluntary Disclosures Program

The Excise Tax Act has a couple of “closely related” provisions, which ameliorate the effects of the GST/HST, namely those found in sections 150 and 156 of the ETA. Amendments to the ground rules for how these provisions operate were announced in the 2016 federal budget, and more recently came into force on March 22, 2017. These amendments add a new “qualifying voting control” test for both elections.

Every importer wants to know how much it is going to cost to import goods into Canada. To answer this question, the importer needs to ask questions about (1) the H.S. tariff classification of the good being imported into Canada, (2) the origin of the good being imported into Canada, (3) the applicable tariff rate of the good being imported into Canada and (4) the value of the good being imported into Canada.

In Fairmont Hotels Inc. (2016 SCC 56) and Jean Coutu Group (2016 SCC 55) the Supreme Court of Canada added some much-needed clarity to the law of rectification. Although the result might be disappointing for taxpayers and tax practitioners alike, these decisions bring Ontario back in line with the rest of Canada by establishing that an application for rectification must be supported by a detailed intention.

Mistakes happen. While the majority of Canadian companies want to comply with Canada’s export controls and economic sanctions laws, violations can occur. Often when there is an economic sanctions violation, there is also an export controls violation at the same time. Sometimes, there are export controls violations without an economic sanction violation.