In its 2020 Fall Economic Statement, the Canadian government announced that it would be moving forward with a unilateral approach to the taxation of digital services. This announcement came after years of discussions regarding a multilateral agreement on cross-border digital…
In February, the United States Department of Justice entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with Swiss bank, Rahn and Bodmer (R+B). The agreement refers to the criminal charge that R+B conspired with others to defraud the IRS, to file false…
The Tax Court’s decision in Landbouwbedrijf Backx B.V. v. Canada, 2021 TCC 2 is a reminder to taxpayers that just because their filing position in a tax return is accepted by the Minister of National Revenue (the “Minister”), it…
On June 23, 2020, the CRA released its National Business Resumption Plan (the “NBRP”) for CRA employees. This follows the CRA’s previous announcement that it would be transitioning from a critical services mode to a business resumption mode on June…
On May 19, 2020 the CRA published administrative relief (found here) for taxpayers who might otherwise be facing Canadian tax residency or cross-border issues as a result of travel restrictions imposed in light of the COVID-19 crisis. Certain potential tax…
Minister of Finance, Bill Morneau, tabled the 2019 Budget today (“Budget Day”). This Thorsteinssons update summarizes some of the main tax takeaways.
The tax measures introduced in the Budget should not impact the vast majority of businesses. As a pre-election…
Yesterday, the CBC reported that the CRA has transferred more than 1.6 million Canadian banking records to the United States Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) since an information sharing agreement was entered into between the two countries in 2014. The…
In these heady days of cryptocurrency investment, the market can seem like a gold rush: offering promise, but at the expense of predictability. The taxation of cryptocurrencies is no different. In this article, a collaboration between the Fintech Team…
The Province of Quebec announced today that it intends to expand its requirements for non-resident vendors to collect and remit Quebec Sales Tax (“QST”) on sales to Quebec consumers, effective as early as January 1, 2019. In this context “non-resident”…
On October 13, 2017, the Federal Court of Appeal released its decision in Univar Holdco Canada ULC. v. H.M.Q. 2017 FCA 207 (“Univar”), overturning the trial decision at the Tax Court of Canada (2016 TCC 159). The judgment contained several…