In order to finance $400,000 of the $500,000 purchase price of a rental property, the taxpayer receives a 5-year mortgage loan from a financial institution, and also receives 5% cash back, or $20,000, which the taxpayer uses for, inter alia, the down payment. This cashback reflects that the mortgage bears the institution’s “posted” interest rate, rather than its most favourable rate. Before indicating that, absent making an election under s. 12(2.2), there would be an inclusion under s. 12(1)(x) “[p]rovided the taxpayer has not already taken the amount of the rebate into account in computing income under section 9,” CRA stated:
[T]he elections under subsections 13(7.4) and 53(2.1) do not appear to be available since the cash rebate made by the financial institution does not appear to have been received by the taxpayer in respect of depreciable property as required by subsection 13(7.4) nor received on account of the cost of a property as referred to in subsection 53(2.1). Rather, the cash rebate appears to have been received because the taxpayer agreed to take out a 5-year mortgage with the financial institution at a less competitive interest rate and not because the taxpayer acquired the rental property.