The taxpayer purchased timeshare units for cash (as to 1/9 of the consideration) and promissory notes (as to the balance), and then donated the units (which had a fair market value equal only to the cash portion of the "donation") to a registered charity. The Minister reassessed the taxpayer on the basis that neither the leveraged portion of his donation nor his actual cash outlay qualified for a charitable receipt. Bocock J. found that the promissory notes were pretences and did not reflect a bona fide obligation of the taxpayer - and that he asked for a discharge of such purported obligations only because of the risk that someone might subsequently mistake them for genuine obligations.
He also found that the cash outlay generated a credit, notwithstanding that the taxpayer's biggest motivation for making the outlay was to obtain a tax benefit. After reviewing the jurisprudence to the effect that charitable receipts do not, by themselves, represent a tangible or potential benefit that vitiates a finding of "gift," he concluded (at para. 48):
In the absence of some other benefit received beyond the Inflated Tax Receipts, no legal authority suggests donative intent as defined by the case law relevant to section 118.1 of the Act has been vitiated or nullified to the extent of the value of the Cash Donation Amount.
Bocock J. found (at para. 35) that Maréchaux was "easily distinguishable" on the basis that the promissory notes and transaction documents in the present case were legally ineffective - they provided no "tangible or potential benefit to the Appellant" beyond camouflaging the true amount of the gift from CRA.