An issue arising under the Canada-UK Treaty was whether the 99% share of the limited partners of a UK LP in interest paid by a Canadian subsidiary (Canco) to the UK LP would be exempt from interest withholding. Under the ITA, the LP would be deemed to be a non-resident person for Part XIII purposes and that fictional person would be related to Canco under s. 251(2), so that the interest would be considered to be ineligible for the domestic exemption for arm’s length interest. However, Art. 11, subpara. 3(c) of the Treaty also has an exemption for arm’s length interest, and for Treaty purposes the UK LP would be fiscally transparent. Accordingly, the interest paid would be exempt provided that the limited partners were dealing at arm’s length with Canco as a factual matter.
In this regard, CRA stated that it was in general agreement with a submission that referred to the statement in Folio S1-F5-C1 that “when a partner is not in a position to control a partnership…that…partner is dealing at arm's length with the partnership,” and reasoned that a partner who is considered to be dealing at arm’s length with a partnership should also be considered to be dealing at arm’s length with the corporation controlled by the partnership.