Roland St-Onge (orally April 27, 1978) [TRANSLATION]:—The appeal of Mr Roland Vaillancourt came before me on April 27, 1978 in Montreal, Quebec. It is a question of alimony paid by the appellant to his wife during the 1974 taxation year. For this taxation year, the appellant sought to deduct the sum of $9,957 from his income as alimony paid to his wife during the said year. The respondent disallowed the deduction of $5,967 which the appellant had paid to his wife during the period from January 1, 1974 to August 22 of the same year because, apparently, there was no written agreement or court judgment for this period.
In fact, the evidence revealed that a judgment had been rendered on August 22, 1974, ordering the appellant to pay alimony of $210 per week to his wife to provide for her needs and those of their children, in her custody, and that no written agreement had been made between the appellant and his wife concerning the payment of $5,967.
The appellant testified that he had paid $177 per week to his wife from the beginning of the year to the date of the judgment, and that before the judgment, a draft agreement had been prepared by his wife’s lawyer after he had met with her in the lawyer’s office. The appellant explained that he had not signed the written agreement, and I quote his words:
I wanted to determine whether the agreement was reasonable.
It is therefore quite evident that at this time no written agreement had been made. The appellant argued, basing himself on Art. 1472 of the Civil Code of the province of Quebec, that only the consent of the two parties is required in order to constitute an agreement or a contract.
Unfortunately, the Board cannot take this section of the Civil Code into account because paragraph 60(b) of the Income Tax Act must be interpreted restrictively, and the said section reads as follows:
Alimony payments.—an amount paid by the taxpayer in the year, pursuant to a decree, order or judgment of a competent tribunal or pursuant to a written agreement, as alimony or other allowance payable on a periodic basis for the maintenance of the recipient thereof, children of the marriage, or both the recipient and children of the marriage, if he was living apart from, and was separated pursuant to a divorce, judicial separation or written separation agreement from, his spouse or former spouse to whom he was required to make the payment at the time the payment was made and throughout the remainder of the year.
According to this section, it is clear that the amounts paid as alimony should be paid pursuant to a judgment of a competent tribunal or to a written agreement, and that according to the numerous precedents cited by counsel for the respondent, the meeting and the interview on December 13, 1973 at the office of Mrs Vaillancourt’s lawyer, the sending of a letter and draft agreement by the wife’s lawyer to the appellant, and the twenty cheques totalling $5,657 [sic] all signed by the appellant and endorsed by Mrs Vaillancourt, cannot in any way constitute a valid written agreement within the meaning of paragraph 60(b) of the Income Tax Act.
For all these reasons, I must dismiss the appeal. The appeal is dismissed.
Appeal dismissed.