CRA has expanded its mandatory disclosure guidance

CRA has made a few additions to its webpage on the mandatory disclosure rules, for instance:

• Reporting persons may file an optional disclosure (so as to avoid the GAAR penalty or the extended statute-barring period) even where the subject arrangement is one which CRA has stated, for example, on its GAAR web page, that it could apply GAAR to the arrangement (para. 16).
• A professional would not be considered an advisor for s. 237.4 purposes if the professional did not provide any assistance or advice with respect to creating, developing, planning, organizing, or implementing the notifiable transaction (para. 76).
• For example, in the context of NT-2023-02 (regarding avoidance of the 21-year trust rule), where a professional issued a letter to a trustee recommending that the Old Trust should never make a distribution designated under s. 104(19) or a capital distribution under s. 107(2) to a corporation in which a New Trust or a non-resident beneficiary is a shareholder, the professional will not be considered an advisor for purposes of s. 237.4 where such a distribution in fact was made (para. 77).
• CRA has issued the following further exception to NT-2023-02:

In a tiered structure, where Opco has two shareholders (100 Class “A” Common Shares owned by Trust X, 100 Class “B” Common Shares owned by Holdco), Holdco has two shareholders (100 Class Common Shares owned by Trust Y, 100 Preferred Shares - aggregate redemption value $1,000,000 - owned Ms. X) and Opco pays a $1,000,000 dividend on its Class “B” Common Shares to Holdco who then uses the proceeds to redeem all the preferred Shares held by Ms. X, the transactions would not be considered substantially similar to NT-2023-02.

Neal Armstrong. Summaries of Mandatory disclosure rules – Guidance, 26 April 2026 CRA Webpage including under s. 245(5.1), s. 237.4(1) – advisor and s. 237.4(3).