Two months after their marriage, the taxpayer received (on January 8, 1993) from her husband (“CC”) the transfer of a property valued in excess of his subsequently assessed tax liabilities for various taxation years including his 1988 and 1989 years. CRA alleged that it received a timely waiver by CC for his 1988 year. CRA also received a waiver for his 1989 year on May 31, 1993, whereas the normal reassessment period for that year ended on Sunday, May 30, 1993.
Regarding the waiver for 1988, Owen J stated (at para. 108):
A statute-barred issue in respect of which the Minister asserts that a reassessment is not null and void places a burden of proof on the Minister while a correctness issue places a burden of proof on the taxpayer.
He then found that the Minister had not met this burden with evidence of a CRA employee that an unstamped signed waiver was included in the taxpayer’s physical file along with a time-stamped letter on behalf of the taxpayer that was not established to have been attached in front of the waiver.
Regarding the waiver for 1989 and in finding that s. 26 of the Interpretation Act (which provided that “Where the time limited for the doing of a thing expires or falls on a holiday, the thing may be done on the day next following that is not a holiday”), did not have the effect of deeming the waiver to have been received during the normal reassessment period expiring on the Sunday, Owen J stated (at paras. 155-156):
The Respondent is relying on a rule the purpose of which is to relieve a person faced with a deadline to do something–such as object to or appeal from an assessment–from breaching that deadline because the deadline falls on a holiday.
A taxpayer filing a waiver is not facing a deadline that would preclude the taxpayer from doing anything. A waiver is valid “only if” it is filed within the normal reassessment period. The deadline relates solely to the validity of the waiver itself, not to the doing of something by the person filing the waiver.