The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, and the Honourable Rob Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, today invited stakeholders to comment on proposals to improve the caseload management of the Tax Court of Canada.

The proposals would:

• Update the monetary limits for access to the informal appeal procedure, providing taxpayers with greater access to a simplified and cost-effective judicial process and enabling a better balance in the Tax Court of Canada’s caseload. Under this proposal, a taxpayer could elect to proceed by way of Informal Procedure where the aggregate of all amounts in issue in an income tax appeal is equal to or less than $25,000 (or where a loss does not exceed $50,000). Also, under a new monetary limit for GST/HST appeals, an appeal involving an amount in dispute in excess of $50,000 would be required to proceed by way of the General Procedure.
• Allow the Tax Court of Canada to dispose of issues raised in an appeal of an assessment separately, so that some issues can be resolved independently from others and to allow the Minister of National Revenue to give effect to the decision of the Court in respect of those discrete issues.
• Permit the Tax Court of Canada to hear a question affecting a group of two or more taxpayers that arises out of substantially similar transactions, and provide that the resulting judicial determination is binding across the group.

I worked on a tax shelter dispute involving several thousand taxpayers where I represented only a couple of hundred of them, and so the latter possibility is of real interest to me. The “backgrounder” says the following about the proposal:

• [I]t is proposed to amend the Income Tax Act to allow, on application by the Minister, the Tax Court to also hear a question arising out of identical or substantially similar transactions and cause the resulting judicial determination to be binding across the group.
• It is also proposed that the Income Tax Act be amended to specify that the Minister can serve notice of the application by way of regular mail or may seek direction from the Tax Court as to alternate means of service.

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.