A corporation of which the taxpayer was the sole shareholder and director was dissolved for failure to file annual returns in 1984, an application for a revival of the corporation was prepared in 1990 but no certificate of revival was issued until February 1998 given deficiencies in the application. The Minister reassessed the taxpayer for 1991 to 1994 in respect of income that the taxpayer took the position should be treated as income of the corporation.
After noting that at the time the certificate of revival was obtained pursuant to section 209 of the CBCA, subsection 209(4) of the CBCA had not been amended to provide that a revival had retroactive effect, Dussault T.C.J. stated (at p. 793):
From 1991 to 1994, the Corporation was quite simply non-existent. It therefore did not have the capacity to act and, thus, to operate or own a business. The income earned accordingly belongs to the person who generated that income through his activity, that is to say to the person who operated the business, even if that person claims to have done so for and on behalf of the Corporation, which was dissolved at the time ... .