SimpsonWigle Law LLP Tax News

Despite the many technical pitfalls in the reorganization provisions of the Income Tax Act, cases involving those provisions do not often come before the Tax Court. Husky Oil Limited v. The Queen, 2009 TCC 118, is one such case that deals with whether subsection 87(4) applied to an amalgamation. The facts of the case defy easy summary and comprehension. In the result, the Court held that the rollover in 87(4) didn’t apply because the amalgamation conferred a benefit on one of its parties.

The Tax Court, in Neumann v. The Queen, 2009 TCC 81, has decided that a capital dividend is a transfer of property for the purposes of section 160, just like an ordinary dividend.

The following article appeared in the latest edition of the Hamilton Law Association Law Journal. (more…)

No doubt some taxpayers believe that the CRA is corrupt, but the truth is that most CRA personnel are dedicated and professional civil servants. On the other hand, it’s not necessarily lily-white either.

In the interests of doing my part to be part of Web 2.0, I’ve deleted my page on this blog devoted to links of interest to tax practitioners, and I’ve created a page of links at delicious.com instead. Those of you who are really into Web 2.0 can follow that page through its RSS feed.

Paragraph 149.1(4)(c) in my version of the Practitioner’s Income Tax Act (35th edition) is missing an “or” at the end of it. I emailed David Sherman, the PITA editor, about this, and he confirmed that the “or” was missing in S.C. 2007, c. 35 (that is, it’s a Finance error, not a PITA error). He will now add the missing conjunction in square brackets.

Every now and then I spot these errors, or I notice a cross-reference that could be added, and I send an email to David about it. He is usually very responsive (I often receive responses the same day), and he almost always incorporates my suggestions. I know it’s kind of nerdy (”Only ‘kinda’?” I hear you say), but it does improve the quality of what I’m using, which is no doubt why David reacts so favourably to my emails.