Pietrovito – Tax Court of Canada refuses to permit a taxpayer to correct a clear error in appealing only one of the two taxation years in dispute

Due to a clerical error by a liaison between the taxpayer and his counsel, counsel was only instructed to prepare a Notice of Appeal for Year 1 and not Year 2, notwithstanding that it was the obvious intention of the taxpayer to appeal both. Lafleur J declined to extend the Wells case to permit the taxpayer, following the discovery of this error, to amend his Notice of Appeal to extend the appeal to cover Year 2.

She also found that as the one year extension period under s. 167(5)(a) had long since passed, she could not waive the one-year period and rejected an argument that “on the basis of Hickerty, [2007 TCC 482] that where an appellant has taken positive actions to appeal and where that appellant reasonably believes that the appeal has been validly filed, the one‑year grace period had stopped running.”

Neal Armstrong. Summaries of Pietrovito v. The Queen, 2017 TCC 119 under s. 169(1) and s. 167(5)(a).