CRA indicates that common or affiliated trustees do not by themselves cause entities to be affiliated

S. 251.1(4)(c) provides that for the purposes of the definition of affiliated persons in s. 251.1:

notwithstanding subsection 104(1), a reference to a trust does not include a reference to the trustee or other persons who own or control the trust property;

CRA indicated that this reading rule is not restricted to the provisions of s. 251.1(1) that refer expressly to a “trust” (i.e., it is not limited to ss. 251.1(1)(g) and (h)). Instead, the rule “should be taken into account when interpreting subsection 251.1(1) regardless of whether there is a specific reference to a trust in the paragraph being examined.”

Perhaps an example of what is meant by this is in the application of s. 251.1(1)(c)(i) (whereunder two corporations are affiliated if they are controlled by the same person, or by respective persons who were affiliated with each other) - so that, under this CRA interpretation, two corporations would not be affiliated merely because, for instance, they were each owned by a trust for a different family but the two trusts happened to have the same trustee.

Neal Armstrong. Summary of 9 June 2022 External T.I. 2022-0930081E5 under s. 251.1(4)(c).