Vine Estate – Tax Court of Canada finds that filing an amended return will not solve the statute-barring problem for the poorly-reviewed original return

Campbell J found that quickly filing an amended return, which corrects an error in a return which the taxpayer did not properly review, will not prevent CRA from reassessing the taxpayer after the normal reassessment period.  This issue arose because CRA did not process the correction until after that period had passed and failed to get a waiver for the particular error-related issue.

A practice point: this case suggests that if a client carefully reviews a return but does not spot anything odd that merits following-up with her "expert" accountant, the return will become statute barred in due course even if the error would have been obvious to a properly-briefed expert.  Therefore, insist that your client read it!

Neal Armstrong.  Summaries of Vine Estate v. The Queen, 2014 TCC 64 under s. 152(4)(a)(i) and General Concepts - Evidence and Fair Market Value - Land.