Yesterday, I spoke about the new rules for non-competes at an HLA-sponsored seminar.
Frankly, my speaking notes aren’t as clear as I would like them to be, even allowing for the fact that the new rules are (needlessly) complex. I hope to remedy the defect by writing an article on non-competes in an upcoming issue of the HLA Journal.
The CRA issued a couple of news releases yesterday. One of them warned about RSP “scams”, and the other announced that the CRA had issued a notice of suspension to ‘International Charity Association Network.’
The Department of Finance announced today that it has appointed a panel on Canada’s international taxation system.
From Bleak House:
Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.
Here come the goodies. From the Finance website:
The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, today tabled in the House of Commons the Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act to effect the $60 billion of broad-based tax relief proposed in the October 30, 2007 Economic Statement. The Act also includes Budget 2007 measures not included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2007, which received Royal Assent on June 22, 2007.
Meanwhile, Bill C-10 continues to languish in the Senate at first reading.
The CRA is embarking on a media campaign to warn taxpayers about fraudulent charities and donation tax shelters. The CRA is cranking up its campaign on this issue, as I have noted previously. For more background, see my posts here and here.
The Minister of Finance released today a notice of ways and means motion to implement aspects of the March, 2007 budget. Frankly, it’s a bag of goodies for taxpayers. (But I am grateful that this latest release no where uses the fatuous phrase “Canada’s New Government”.)
In other news, Bill C-33, which died on the order paper in September, has been re-introduced as Bill C-10. The Senate was supposed to give the bill its second reading today.
The following article on section 160 of the Income Tax Act (Canada) appeared in the latest edition of the Hamilton Law Association Law Journal. It is an expanded version of one of my posts from August.
Section 160 of the Income Tax Act (the “Act”) permits the CRA to assess “at any time” a taxpayer who receives property for inadequate consideration from a non-arm’s length tax debtor. (more…)
A couple of weeks ago, the CRA issued the new version of its information circular on voluntary disclosures (IC00-1R2). See also the form for a VD “taxpayer agreement“.
The federal government, in its “economic update” of October 30, 2007, proposed to reduce the GST rate from 6% to 5%. The reduction will be effective January 1, 2008. The transitional rules and associated changes “in general [...] are the same as those implemented when the GST was reduced from 7 to 6 per cent on July 1, 2006.” For more information, see the Department of Finance website, in particular under the heading “Specific Transitional Rules”. The site includes details on the rules applicable to transfers of real property (see “(a) Sales of Real Property”).
