The appellant, a registrant in the events management business, invoiced a customer (Flora) for a total of $1,769,694 including GST of $103,440 for services rendered (and invoiced, see para. 22) over a 12-month period ending on October 2006, but was unable to collect anything as Flora was determined to be insolvent in November 2006. Flora made a settlement offer to its creditors in February 2007, which the appellant accepted, but no payments were made thereunder.
After Revenue Quebec indicated (at the end of 2008) that it would deny the appellant's claim (made for its quarterly reporting period ending on 31 January 2007) under s. 231 on the basis that the situation instead had called for a claim under s. 232 (apparently based on viewing the February 2007 agreement as an adjustment to the consideration), the appellant (in January 2009) entered into a write-off agreement with Flora, issued a credit note to Flora, and claimed a credit under s. 232(3) for the GST of $103,440 in its return for the reporting period ending on 31 January 2009. Revenue Quebec considered that the credit note had not been issued "within a reasonable time," as required by s. 232(3).
After stating (at para. 19) (TaxInterpretations translation) that the jurisprudence indicated "that the creditor need not have taken proactive measures if it reasonably and sincerely believed that recovery was impossible," Tardif J concluded (at para. 30) that in light of Flora's known insolvency, it was appropriate at the effective time of the bad debt claim to consider the debt to be irrecoverable and that any expense or effort to recover it would have been "a pure waste of energy and money." Respecting the "write-off" branch of s. 231(1), he stated (at para. 39) that "a contemporaneous document recording the decision to write-off the debt appears essential to the application of section 231," and (at para. 40) that here, the preponderance of evidence indicated the satisfaction of the write-off requirement.
The disposition of the "reasonable delay" issue is summarized below under s. 232(3). The appeal was allowed.