14 March 1990 Ministerial Letter 90M03038 F - EMR Legal Services

Please note that the following document, although believed to be correct at the time of issue, may not represent the current position of the CRA.
Prenez note que ce document, bien qu'exact au moment émis, peut ne pas représenter la position actuelle de l'ARC.

March 14, 1990

Dear Mr. Burke:

This is in reply to your letter of February 22, 1990 with which you forwarded a copy of an opinion you had received from Mr. Gordon McCallum of EMR Legal Services dated February 12, 1990.

You asked for our comments.

In our view, information provided by a taxpayer for purposes of the administration of the Income Tax Act becomes information obtained by or on behalf of the Minster of National Revenue, who is responsible for the administration of the Income Tax Act. This would include information provided to your Minister for the purpose of obtaining a Class 34 certificate in order to claim accelerated capital cost allowance in respect of certain depreciable property.

The confidentiality of such information is protected by subsection 241(1) of the Income Tax Act and subsection 239(2.2) of the Income Tax Act provides that any person who contraveners subsection 241(1) is liable to a fine of $5000, imprisonment for 12 months, or both. Accordingly, we agree with the views expressed by Mr. McCallum in his opinion of February 12, 1990.

In addition, we draw your attention to the fact that there may be Privacy Act implications where information provided for one purpose (obtaining a Class 34 certificate) is used for any other purpose.

Finally, we note that the government security policy requires that appropriate measures be taken to protect tax sensitive information.

We trust these remarks are of assistance.

Yours truly,

for DirectorBusiness and General DivisionSpecialty Rulings DirectorateLegislative and Intergovernmental Affairs Branch