Paradis v. The Queen, docket 1999-4802(IT)I (Informal Procedure)

[OFFICIAL ENGLISH TRANSLATION]

Date: 20001201

Docket: 1999-4802(IT)I

BETWEEN:

MARIO PARADIS,

Appellant,

and

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN,

Respondent.

Agent for the Appellant:                       Robert Lendick

Counsel for the Respondent:                Mounes Ayadi

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

(delivered orally from the bench

on August 30, 2000, at Montréal, Quebec)

Dussault, J.T.C.C.

[1]      I will now render my decision. I will not repeat what Mr. Ayadi said. However, I do agree with him. I have tried to express your point of view, Mr. Lendick, to be certain that the appellant understood it on his side. I have no evidence of a limited partnership or an undeclared partnership between the three people here, although I gave you ample opportunities to provide whatever evidence you may wish.

[2]      I believe that a corporation was in fact created since it has a head office and a director. You have admitted that it opened a bank account and that transactions were made on the account. You have submitted documents concerning its financial performance. These are very brief records for the fiscal year of a corporation. Therefore, I shall not repeat everything that Mr. Ayadi said in citing all the sections of the Business Corporations Act. In my opinion, the evidence as a whole does not establish that business was carried on by a partnership, whether a general partnership or an undeclared partnership. Because even if there may be an oral agreement to that end, I have not been given the evidence for it, either in Mr. Paradis' testimony or in your own testimony, Mr. Lendick. I still believe that you are confusing the word "business". You give it a meaning that it does not necessarily have.

[3]      Furthermore, with regard to the 1995 taxation year, the documents that you have submitted in evidence in no way correspond to what was claimed as a loss, and it is impossible to match this document with what was claimed as a loss in Mr. Paradis' return for the 1995 taxation year. The amount of $16,000 is, in my view, a figure that was provided for no reason. We do not know where it came from.

[4]      With regard to the 1996 taxation year, in my opinion, the situation is even worse. Strictly speaking, there is nothing that makes it possible to think that a loss of $20,000 could have been incurred. Therefore, I must dismiss the appeals for the 1995 and 1996 taxation years.

Signed at Ottawa, Canada, this 1st day of December 2000.

J.T.C.C.

Translation certified true

on this 26^th day of February 2003.

Sophie Debbané, Revisor