A recent newspaper article described a criminal prosecution commenced by the United States against a Swiss Bank. The charge alleged that the bank provided secret bank accounts to US citizens for the purpose of assisting those account holders in the…
In 2012-0470331E5, the CRA was asked whether a withholding tax exception was available under s. 116 where a non-resident seller holds real estate in Canada as part of the seller’s business inventory. The CRA confirmed that no such exception…
In 2012-0436781E5, the CRA was asked whether a payment received by Company A from Company B in exchange for giving up Company A’s share of leased office space was income (s. 9), a capital gain (s. 39), or an…
In MNR v. RBC Life Insurance Company, 2013 FCA 50, the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) confirmed that it has the inherent power to prevent an abuse of the court process – including and perhaps especially by government agencies. …
This week the CRA issued four interpretations in the context of natural resource industries.
o Mining. In 2012-0462361I7, the CRA was asked for its view on the meaning of the phrase “prime metal stage or its equivalent”. The…
In a press release dated February 16, 2013 (paragraph 20), the Department of Finance welcomed the OECD’s report addressing “base erosion and profit shifting” (BEPS) by multinational enterprises (MNEs), and acknowledged that an important part of Canada’s fiscal sustainability…
In 2012-0460121E5, the CRA was asked to consider a case where under the foreign tax law a foreign affiliate (FA) ceases to be required to compute its net income for foreign tax purposes. Rather, going forward, the foreign tax…
This week British Columbia announced increased corporate and personal taxes as part of its 2013 budget. The general corporate income tax rate will be increased to 11% from the current 10% (26% combined federal and provincial rate), effective April 1,…
There’s been a lot in the news recently about appropriate responses to tax avoidance schemes. The OECD has just released a report on tax base erosion and profit shifting (February, 2013) which was endorsed by the G-20 Finance Ministers in…
We have reported previously on the audit initiatives of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) with respect to Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) (http://www.thor.ca/tax-alerts/punitive-tfsa-audits/ and http://thor.ca/blog/2012/11/cra-begins-issuing-tax-free-savings-account-tfsa-reassessments/). Recent discussions and correspondence with the CRA suggest a significant expansion of those audit activities.…