At the 2009 British Columbia tax conference the CRA stated:
"...non-participating controlling shares have some value and may therefore bear a premium. However, in the context of an estate freeze of a Canadian-controlled private corporation, where the freezor, as part of an estate freeze, keeps controlling non-participating preference shares in order to protect his economic interest in the corporation, the CRA generally accepts not to take into account any premium that could be attributable to such shares for the purposes of subsection 70(5) of the Income Tax Act at the freezor's death."
In ITTN-44, the CRA commented that, in the context of estate freezes of private corporations:
“Provided that the owners of all the shares of the corporation act in a manner consistent with the assumption that no value attaches to the voting rights, and the rights are eventually extinguished for no consideration, the CRA will generally not attribute value to the rights. If the holder of the rights uses them to run the corporation in conflict with the common shareholders or seeks or is offered consideration for them, it would be difficult for the CRA to ignore this evidence of value.”
CRA stated that these quoted positions continue to reflect the CRA’s current policy.