The taxpayer suffered a brain injury in a vehicle collision, causing him to eventually develop paranoid delusions, including the delusion that the federal government had no right to tax. Several years after the collision, he stopped paying tax altogether. Near J. found that, while it was open to the Minister not to waive the associated interest and penalties, the delegate who made that decision had done so on a misapprehension of the facts. He wrote at para. 45:
The Respondent submits that it was for the [taxpayer] to satisfy the Minister that not only did he suffer an injury, but that the injury was the cause of his failure to file tax returns and pay tax. The Respondent relies on Formosi v. Canada (Revenue Agency), [2010 DTC 5057] 2010 FC 326 wherein a delinquent taxpayer failed to convince the Court that there was any connection between several deaths and illnesses of immediate family members and his inability to pay his taxes. This case has no relation to the present matter in which there is ample documentary evidence to support that the Applicant suffered an injury and that this was the cause of his failure to pay tax. That these events, the brain injury and the onset of delusion, are not temporally simultaneous does not negate their existence.
The Minster was ordered to assign a new delegate to reevaluate the decision.