assessment

Before confirming that the taxpayer’s Federal Court motion for judicial review had represented an impermissible collateral attack on assessments made under ETA s. 296, Kasirer J stated (at para. 49):

In rejecting the taxpayer’s position that the Minister’s decision under s. 247(10) is part of an assessment, Karirer J indicated that this position was “inconsistent with the understanding of a tax assessment as a ‘product’ and not a ‘process’” (para. 6).

In the course of finding that the exercise by the Minister of his discretion to disallow an expense was an assessment that could be appealed as such, Thorson P. stated (at p. 857):

The assessment is different from the notice of assessment; the one is an operation, the other a piece of paper. The nature of the assessment operation was clearly stated ... in Federal Commissioner of Taxation v. Clarke ((1927) 40 C.L.R. 246 at 277):

An assessment is only the ascertainment and fixation of liability. …

The taxpayer (“984”) reported a capital gain on its 2003 sale of land on the basis that it had acquired it from its parent (Henro) on a rollover basis. In 2010, the Minister assessed Henro (to include an income account gain) and 984 (to reverse the previously reported capital gain and refund the capital gains tax plus interest, totalling $1.7M) on the basis that the 2003 drop-down had occurred on a non-rollover basis.

CRA determined to not grant a waiver of withholding under Reg. 105 from fees to be paid to the appellants in connection with a proposed performance in Canada. The appellants filed Notice of Objection and filed appeals in the Tax Court on the basis that they thereby had been assessed.

After stating (at para. 22) that “if a withholding of tax is not an assessment, a waiver authorizing a Canadian taxpayer to not withhold the 15% on the fees payable to a non-resident is also not an assessment,” Favreau J stated (at paras. 26-7):

The taxpayer was not able to appeal a "nil" reassessment to the Tax Appeal Board. The word "assessment" referred to the actual sum in tax which the taxpayer is liable to pay and there, accordingly, was no assessment to appeal.

It was indicated, obiter, that the Minister was not precluded from taking a position before the Trial Division that was inconsistent with the basis of his reassessment. Hugessen, J. stated: "While the word 'assessment' can bear two constructions, as being either the process by which tax is assessed or the product of that assessment, it seems to me clear, from a reading of sections 152 to 177 of the Income Tax Act, that the word is there employed in the second sense only."

The taxpayer, along with other credit unions, was required to deposit with the Ontario Share and Deposit Insurance Corporation ("OSDIC") amounts equal to 1% of its capital.

The Minister initially reassessed the taxpayer on the assumption that it had purchased seismic data for more than its fair market value, so that a portion of the expenditure did not qualify for deduction as CEE, and confirmed this reassessment on the assumption that the expenditure had not been made for a qualifying purpose so that it did not qualify as CEE.