Collins v. The Queen, 96 DTC 1034 (TCC)

Bowman TCJ. stated (at p. 1037) that he agreed with the proposition that "ownership for purposes of the Income Tax Act means beneficial ownership."

Before rejecting a submission that the taxpayer had held half of his shares of a private company on a resulting trust for his wife, Bowman TCJ. refer to the complex and sophisticated legal structure that the taxpayer, his wife and their advisors had adopted for holding their business interests and stated (at p. 1039):

"If one knowingly and intentionally adopts one legal structure to achieve a particular fiscal or commercial result it would take far more cogent evidence than I have seen here to permit a taxpayer to discard one portion of that structure when that portion turns out to be fiscally inconvenient."

Before rejecting a submission that the taxpayer held half of his shares of a private company on a constructive or resulting trust for his wife, Bowman TCJ. in order that the taxpayers had adopted a complex and sophisticated corporate structure for holding their various business interests and (at p. 1039):

"Both he and his wife are too intelligent to be oblivious to the fact that each owned different portions of the corporate empire and that they did so for good reasons."