The appellant, a "specified person" under ETA s. 301, referred in its notice of objection to requests it had made to an auditor in the course of a CRA audit to allow unclaimed input tax credits and to allow foreign exchange adjustments. Although in neither case was the nature of the requested adjustments specified, those particulars had previously been communicated to CRA (i.e., ITCs for specified unclaimed items - and a change to a more accurate methodology for FX translation, which CRA resisted on "consistency" grounds). The requested adjustments' amounts were precisely specified in the notice of objection.
The Minister moved to essentially disallow raising the issues in the notice of appeal. After noting (at para. 50) that there were "no discernible differences to the courts' approach, analysis or application" of the ITA large corporation and ETA specified person rules, and before dismissing the Crown's motion, Boyle J stated (at paras. 57, 59):
It is the Minister who needs to be able to understand the scope and quantum of the issue from its description in the notice of objection. The reader of a notice of objection who should reasonably be able to understand or recognize the particular issue from the contents of the notice of objection is not the hypothetical reasonable Canadian, nor is it a Tax Court judge.
...The evidence in this case wholly satisfies me that both objectively and subjectively the Minister should have and did understand from the Notice of Objection filed by the Appellant that these two specific issues which had been specifically raised during the audit which gave rise to the reassessment, were being objected to.