Diktakis – Tax Court of Canada finds that a taxpayer and her two years old half-sister were related

ITA s. 251(6)(a) indicates that siblings are related. Smith J found that a taxpayer was related to a two year old child who was the result of relations between the taxpayer’s father and a woman who was not his spouse or common-law partner. Accordingly, the taxpayer might have been entitled to the new housing GST rebate if she could have established (which she did not) that her half-sister and that child’s mother had been the first occupants of a new condo that had been acquired by the taxpayer.

In this regard, Smith J noted the oddity of a two-year old child satisfying the occupying-the-new-home requirement in the rebate provisions. However, he referred to s. 158 of the Civil Code of Quebec, which provided that “an act that may be performed by a minor alone may also be validly performed by his representative,” and then found that the acts of the child (i.e., home occupation) could be performed by her representative (the mother).

Neal Armstrong. Summaries of Diktakis v. The Queen, 2016 TCC 262 under ETA, s. 254(2)(g).