The registrant (UPS), in its capacity as a licensed customs broker, overpaid GST on goods it brought into Canada on behalf of persons to whom it had delivered shipments from outside of Canada. It reported the overpayments in its monthly GST returns by deducting the amount of the overpayments from its own GST liability as a supplier of goods and services. After finding that this approach to obtaining a refund of the overpaid GST was authorized under 261(1), Rothstein, J. went on to state (at para. 30):
As I read s. 296(2.1), even if no application for a rebate was made within the applicable limitation period, the rebate shall be applied by the Minister against the net tax owed by the taxpayer in the reassessment process if the Minister determines that a rebate would have been payable had it been claimed. The section refers to “allowable rebate”. Allowable rebate must mean a rebate that would have been allowable had the applicable procedure been followed. In other words, where these procedures have not been followed, it is not fatal to the rebate claim.