CRA confirms that it generally will not attach value to private company voting rights

CRA confirmed a previous position that “provided that the owners of all the shares of the corporation act in a manner consistent with the assumption that no value attaches to the voting rights, and the rights are eventually extinguished for no consideration, the CRA will generally not attribute value to the rights,” so that, for example, “in the context of an estate freeze of a Canadian-controlled private corporation, where the freezor, as part of an estate freeze, keeps controlling non-participating preference shares in order to protect his economic interest in the corporation, the CRA generally accepts not to take into account any premium that could be attributable to such shares for the purposes of subsection 70(5).”

Neal Armstrong. Summary of 8 July 2020 CALU Roundtable Q. 7, 2020-0842251C6 under s. 70(5).