Canderel Ltd. v. Canada, 98 DTC 6100, [1998] 1 S.C.R. 147, [1998] 2 C.T.C. 35 -- summary under Accounting Principles

Before going on to find that the taxpayer was entitled to immediately expense for tax purposes the amount of tenant inducement payments that it had capitalized for accounting purposes, Iacobucci J. indicated that: tax computations, unlike financial accounting, may entail the use of a different methodology for calculating profit from that employed in a previous year; that while generally-accepted accounting principles may more often than not parallel well-accepted business principles recognized by the law, there may be occasions on which they will differ, in which case the latter must prevail; and that if some method other than the matching principle best depicts the reality of the financial situation of the particular taxpayer, is permissible under well-accepted business principles, and is not prohibited by the Act or some specific rule of law, there is no principled basis on which the Minister should be entitled to insist that the matching principle be employed.