A CPA (Mr. Gross) was the sole shareholder of two corporations (635 and 307), each of which was a partner in a Richter professional partnership or a Richter management services partnership. A partnership contract required all the direct or indirect individual partners to devote their services exclusively to Richter affairs.

Mr. Gross also was the controlling shareholder of a corporation (9149), which agreed with 635 and 307 to provide the full-time services of Mr. Gross in fulfilment of their obligations as partners to provide his services. Mr. Gross, who did not have a written agreement with 9149 for the provision of his services, was treated by the ARQ as providing those services qua employee of 9149 rather than independent contractor, so that the ARQ assessed regarding failure to make source deductions and to deny expenses deducted from his income.

Lavallée JCA confirmed that 9149 should be regarded as having superintendence and control over Mr. Gross for purposes of viewing him as a 9149 employee (notwithstanding his de jure control of 9149) given inter alia that the combined effect of the two agreements was to bind him to provide his full-time services to a single group user.

This case may implicitly contradict the narrow CRA view (see, most recently, Folios S3-F1-C1 and S3-F1-C2) as to when individual shareholders are performing a role of employee.

Neal Armstrong. Summary of Gross v. Agence du revenu du Québec, 2025 QCCA 492 under s. 5(1).

We have translated two CRA interpretations released last week and a further 6 CRA interpretations released in September of 2000. Their descriptors and links appear below.

These are additions to our set of 3,182 full-text translations of French-language Technical Interpretation and Roundtable items (plus some ruling letters) of the Income Tax Rulings Directorate, which covers all of the last 24 ½ years of releases of such items by the Directorate. These translations are subject to our paywall (applicable after the 5^th of each month).

CRA states that the simplest way for a supplier to demonstrate that its supply of contact lenses or eyeglasses was made to a consumer pursuant to a valid prescription or assessment record, as required by ETA s. VI-II-9 (see also Contact Lens King) in order for there to be zero-rating, is to retain a copy of those documents. Alternatively, the supplier could obtain and retain details in order to make that demonstration. After receiving representations regarding its previous listing of required details, CRA has now provided a revised list (pared down from the previous one), namely:

• the issue date of the prescription or assessment record;
• the name of the issuing eye care professional; and
• the details of the prescription or assessment record, such as the sphere, cylinder, axis, base curve, or pupillary distance values.

Neal Armstrong. Summary of Excise and GST/HST News – No. 119, April 2025 under ETA s. VI-II-9.

After being asked inter alia whether the "duties … of a temporary nature" condition in s. 6(6)(a)(i) is satisfied where an employee is assigned successively to two projects in the same region or city, CRA indicated “that the place where an employee performs work of a temporary nature (i.e., a special work site) is a particular place of work and not a general geographical area such as a city.” Thus, in the above examples, the second site in the same region or city would be tested separately as to whether the duties to be performed at that special work site were "of a temporary nature."

Neal Armstrong. Summary of 4 January 2022 External T.I. 2016-0644861E5 F under s. 6(6)(a)(i).