Simon Fraser University - Tax Court finds that, for GST purposes, parking fines were not paid to the University as a consequence of contractual breach

The Minister assessed Simon Fraser University for failing to remit GST on fines it collected for campus parking violations, based inter alia on the position that the fines were payments made "as a consequence of the breach of...an agreement for the making of a taxable supply [of parking]," and thus caught by the quoted words of s. 182 of the Excise Tax Act.

C Miller J granted the university's appeal.  The parking contract (contained on some signs) did not specify what the fines would be, and he found that they instead were imposed pursuant to a statutory power of the university.  However, the case easily could have gone the other way given that, if the drivers had complied with the parking contact, there would have been no fines!

Scott Armstrong.  Summary of Simon Fraser University v. The Queen, 2013 TCC 121 , under ETA  s. 182.