6075240 Canada – Federal Court notes that s. 152(3.1), unlike its Quebec equivalent, does not give a taxpayer longer to respond to an arbitrary assessment than a normal assessment

The Minister made arbitrary assessments of the taxpayer following its failure to file some annual returns. In refusing to review the refusal of the Minister to process returns for those years filed more than three years after those assessments, Grammond J. stated that the normal reassessment period “applies to all assessments, whether they were issued following the filing of a tax return or not.”

After noting that s. 152(3.1), unlike the equivalent Quebec provision, “does not provide that the normal reassessment period can begin at the time when the taxpayer files a tax return, if that time is after a first notice of assessment is sent,” Grammond J. stated:

[T]he Quebec statute cannot be used to interpret the federal statute. I agree that this lack of consistency between the two statutes may be a source of confusion for Quebec taxpayers and that it might be considered a source of unfairness, but it is not my role to rewrite the Act to avoid such an outcome.

Neal Armstrong. Summary of 6075240 Canada Inc. v. Canada (National Revenue), 2019 FC 642 under s. 152(4).