Debt/ receivables

The taxpayer, who paid $200,000 for an SRTC debenture that was redeemable by both the company and him for $140,000, realized a gain of $40,000 when the debenture was redeemed because s. 127.3(1) reduced the cost amount to him of the debenture by 50% of the $200,000 amount designated to him pursuant to s. 194(4) of the Act.

In finding that this gain was a capital gain, Hugessen J.A. stated (p. 6269) that he did "not think it can properly be said that a transaction whose sole purpose is to reduce the tax otherwise payable by a taxpayer is, for that reason alone, an adventure in the nature of trade" and (p. 6270) that although "an intention to make a profit is not essential in order for a transaction to be characterized as an adventure in the nature of trade, such transaction must be one from which it is possible to derive a profit in a commercial sense".

The taxpayer sold shares of his family company ("Franco") to an arm's length company ("Charter") and remained as general manager of Franco. Charter and a subsidiary of Charter lent $625,000 to Franco, and when Franco subsequently fell into financial difficulty the taxpayer repurchased the shares, and was assigned Charter's loans, in consideration of for the sum of $1.00 and entering into an agreement to jointly and severally guarantee with Charter certain libilities of up to $200,000, once the liabilities of Franco had been reduced to that level.

The repayment by Franco of loan amounts now owing by it to the taxpayer did not give rise to income in his hands. Although the taxpayer received the repayments rather than being paid salary, the trial judge had found that "at the time of acquisition [of the loans], assignment of the loans to him was of little interest to him and not a primary consideration," and the taxpayer's gain should be considered to have arisen fortuitously rather than as a result of a carefully realized plan for the realization of speculative profits.

The taxpayers incorporated a Canadian corporation ("Quebec") to purchase a business (of which they were key employees) from the U.S. company owning the business ("Delaware"). In satisfaction of the purchase price, Quebec gave a promissory note to Delaware for $453,332, bearing interest at 9%, payable monthly, with the principal due in ten years' time, and the taxpayers entered into an agreement to purchase the promissory note for $250,000, $75,000 of which was payable in twenty-semi annual non-interest bearing instalments and the balance of $175,000 was due in ten years' time, also without interest. Five years later, the parties entered into transactions which resulted in the taxpayers acquiring the promissory note and (ultimately) realizing gains totaling approximately $200,000. In finding that these gains were on income account, Collier J. noted (at p. 6213) that "it is well known tax law that even a single transaction can be an adventure in the nature of trade" and that the purchase of the promissory note was not an investment.

The taxpayer purchased the bulk of a lumber company's shares for $1 and subsequently loaned money to the company and guaranteed loans made to it by other parties. It was held that because the taxpayer's intention in purchasing the company was to transform it from a state of financial difficulty to profitability and then resell it (with the avowed intention of possibly repeating the operation, if successful, with other companies), the amounts which he later lost by way of loans and guarantees were fully deductible as business losses.

Gains enjoyed by the taxpayer, upon the redemption of preferred shares held by her in a company and the partial payment of company indebtedness held by her, were fully taxable because, at the times that she acquired the shares and indebtedness for nominal consideration (1) she was sufficiently involved with her husband (who became president of the company) to make his intentions her own, and (2) his intention was a speculative one of rescuing the company from insolvency and making it profitable through his own efforts.

Non-interest bearing book debts owing by companies (the "Jones companies") in financial difficulty were found to have been acquired (at a fraction of the amounts owing) by a trust as part and parcel of the same transaction wherein the Jones companies' shares were acquired by a company of which the trust's trustee was the president and controlling shareholder. The reason for acquiring the Jones companies was that "there was a good chance they could be made successful and if so, the full value of the book debts might ultimately be reaped." The book debts accordingly were acquired as part of an adventure or concern in the nature of trade.

As part of the purchase by the taxpayer of a car dealership (which was determined to be a capital transaction) the taxpayer acquired a loan payable by the company to the vendor shareholder for no consideration. This loan was not part of the purchased business and was instead an asset of the vendor shareholder, and its acquisition was held to be an adventure in the nature of trade, partly in light of the apparent intention of the taxpayer to withdraw profits from the purchased business the form of a repayment of the loan's principal. All amounts received by him in this form, net of the amount of advances which he made to the company, were received on income account.

After a corporation ("Paving") that was 50% owned by the taxpayers began experiencing financial difficulty, the taxpayers agreed with the other shareholders (the "Newfoundland group") to purchase the shares of the Newfoundland group for a nominal amount and to purchase book debts owing by Paving to companies controlled by the Newfoundland group (having a face amount of $620,633) for the sum of $70,000. The gains subsequently realized by them on repayment of the book debts were received on income account given that the purchase of the book debts occurred as an essential part of the overall plan to save Paving and given the potential rewards of the transaction.

Following the purchase by the taxpayer of two companies on the verge of bankruptcy ("Sonograph" and "Semco"), the acquisition by him of debentures of Semco at a discount, the transfer by his company of its business to Sonograph, and the repayment by Sonograph of indebtedness owing by it to Semco after the realization by Sonograph of profits from the transferred business, the debentures owing by Semco to the taxpayer were repaid for their principal amount, giving rise to a profit to the taxpayer. This profit was found to be realized in connection with an adventure in the nature of trade given that those debentures could not be considered to have been acquired for income and given that the profit arose at least in part from his efforts as a businessman.

The taxpayer, a lawyer, who acquired approximately 1 1/2 mortgages per year at a discount out of his personal savings and who made the acquisitions only after he concluded they were safe investments, realized a $700 discount on the mortgage in question for $7,100 as an accretion to capital rather than in connection with an adventure in the nature of trade. (The Crown had abandoned its contention that the amounts were interest.) Abbott J noted (in addition to the infrequency of the transactions) that income from stocks and bonds "was a relatively modest part of [the taxpayer's] gross income," his "purchases were not speculative and...made after he had inspected each property and reached a decision that each mortgage was a safe investment," and that "this pattern of appellant's activities was consistent with the making of personal investments out of his savings and not with the carrying on of a business" (pp. 5074-5).

The taxpayer, who made a practice of personally advancing money, at a substantial discount, on second mortgage loans to customers of a corporation owned by him, realized a taxable gain when he disposed of all those second mortgage loans to the corporation. It was not appropriate for the trial judge to characterize the transaction as the sael at a gain of a money-lending business as a going concern gvien that the corporate purchaser was essentially wholly-owned by him and already held the first mortgages on the properties in question.

A dentist, whose largest source of income was interest, discounts and bonuses received by him on mortgages which he purchased at a discount, was held to have received the bonuses and discounts as income from "speculative transactions that were adventures in the nature of trade" (p. 1357). In dealing with the submission "that the acquisition of these bonus or discount mortgages had been a mere incident in an overall investment program" (p. 1356), Noël J. noted that the dentist's mortgage holdings were "not a mere incident in his investment program, they comprise nearly the totality of his estate" (p. 1356) at the time of his death in the final taxation year in question.

The taxpayer, who was a businessman engaged in the business of manufacturing soap, purchased in each year first residential mortgages with an above-average degree of risk at a discount of 15%. Judson J. held (p. 1205) that the trial judge had erred:

"in failing to find on the evidence ... that the respondent had engaged in a highly speculative business of purchasing mortgages at a discount and holding them to maturity in order to realize the maximum amount of profit out of the transaction, and in failing to find that the discounts realized were taxable income so there are profits or gains from a trade or business ..."

The taxpayer, who was a senior lawyer, purchased from building contractors agreements (often in the form of lease-option agreements) for the sale of small homes outside Calgary. Notwithstanding that the deferred payments bore interest, generally at 6%, and were secured by the real estate (registered title to which was transferred to the taxpayer) the taxpayer purchased the agreement at discounts ranging from 20% to 40% in light of the risk of default. Judson J. upheld (at p. 1124) the judgment of the trial judge that:

"the appellant was in the highly speculative business of purchasing his obligations at a discount and holding them to maturity in order to realize the maximum amount of profit out of the transactions, and that the profits [were] taxable income and not a capital gain."

A Corporation ("Sunnibilt") was pressured by its bank to sell conditional sales contracts and mortgage receivables owing to it in order to pay down debt. The taxpayers purchased the mortgages and agreements for a lump sum equal to 65% of their face amount.

In finding that the resulting gains to the taxpayers when the mortgages and agreements matured were received on income account, Thorson P. found that they had purchased the mortgages and agreements in the course of their business of managing Sunnibilt (and an affiliated corporation), noted that no prudent person would have thought of purchasing the mortgages and agreements as an investment and also noted that it would have been anomalous to conclude that amounts that clearly would have been income to Sunnibilt could be received on a tax-free basis through the device of selling the mortgages and agreements to the taxpayers. Thorson P. further found that if the gains had not been realized from a business in the ordinary sense of the word, the transactions would have represented an adventure in the nature of trade given that "if a person deals with the commodity purchased by him in the same way as a dealer in it would ordinarily do such dealing is a trading adventure" and "it might reasonably be said that when the respondents purchased Sunnibilt's mortgages and agreements their transaction was similar to the kind of transactions that dealers in mortgages and agreements engaged in".

The taxpayer regularly made mortgage loans at a 15% discount from the face amount and then, within a month of the loan, sold the mortgage loan to his company for the face amount. The discounts were received by him from his company as profits from a business carried on by him.