The Minister assessed the taxpayer to fully deny his charitable donation claim for his 2008 taxation year respecting his participation in a leveraged donation scheme (the “Scheme”). This assessment was made in reliance inter alia on s. 237.1(6.1), which prohibited a claim by a person in respect of a tax shelter where any person was liable to a penalty under s. 237.1(7.4) which was unpaid (here, four persons had been so assessed).
Before going on to find that the s. 237.1(7.4) penalties had not been substantiated, Bodie J found that the Scheme was a tax shelter and, in particular, a gifting arrangement (as defined in s. 237.1(1)) for which the taxpayer incurred a “limited-recourse debt”, as determined under s. 143.2(6.1) given that Mr. Ciccone, who had introduced the taxpayer to the Scheme, told the taxpayer that by participating in the Scheme he would be issued a loan of $40,000 with no bona fide arrangements for repayment and that the amount of the loan would be used to make a charitable gift to the taxpayer’s church.