A shareholder having an accrued foreign exchange loss on common shares of an FA and an accrued foreign exchange gain on a related party debt used to acquire those shares acquires a separate class of the FA's shares and pays dividends thereon with a view to such dividends not reducing a loss to be realized on the a sale of the original FA shares owned - in order that such loss can offset the FX gain on settlement of the debt. Would the conclusion at the 2013 IFA conference (see below) that GAAR would apply change if the funds used to acquire the original FA shares had been borrowed from an arm's length party more than 30 days before the acquisition of the shares?
In responding "no," CRA indicated that a loss would be denied "unless the related debt is a debt described in subparagraph 93(2.01)(b)(ii), a provision which precisely specifies which gains are intended to have an effect on the computation of the amount of a loss to be denied on the disposition of FA shares," and that one such requirement was that an "arm's length foreign currency debt… was entered into within 30 days of the acquisition of the FA share."
