Words and Phrases - "form"
Fiera Foods Company v. The King, 2023 TCC 140
The two bakery plants of the appellant in Toronto were staffed in significant part by temporary workers (“TWs”), who were sourced from third parties (the “Agencies”), which solicited for the TWs and directed them to the appellant. The appellant kept detailed records as to the hours worked by the TWs, which it provided to the Agencies for billing purposes, received invoices from the Agencies for the amounts identified in the invoices, and paid the Agencies therefor (including for HST) once it reconciled the amounts with its records. The Agencies cashed the cheques issued to them by the appellant and mostly paid the TWs in cash, which often was distributed to them in envelopes at the bakeries by the appellant’s supervisors.
CRA did not allege that the TWs were employees of the appellant. They also were not treated by the Agencies as its employees, so that it did not make any source deductions or remittances. They also did not remit any of the HST collected from the appellant. The appellant “chose to ignore the obvious signs that the Agencies were not treating the TWs as employees and/or were not meeting the obligations of an employer because the Appellant’s principal objective was to secure the TWs needed to run its plants at the lowest possible cost” (para. 215).
CRA denied the input tax credit claims of the appellant for the HST paid by it to the Agencies.
Owen J found (at para. 236) that the “Agencies provided a supply to the Appellant that comprised soliciting and directing TWs to the Appellant and paying the TWs for the services provided by those TWs to the Appellant” so that for “the supply provided by each Agency to the Appellant, the Agency was a ‘supplier”, and the Appellant was a ‘recipient’." Thus, the HST at issue had been payable by the appellant.
The Crown also took the position that the invoices received by Fiera did not satisfy the documentary requirements of ETA s. 169(4)(a) and the Input Tax Credit Information (GST/HST) Regulations (the “Regulations”), apparently on the grounds that the invoices were issued, not by the Agencies but, rather, by unauthorized “representatives” of the Agencies who in fact were not “linked” to the Agencies (see, e.g., paras. 155, 267). Before finding that such documentary requirements were met, Owen J indicated that:
- “Reading into paragraph 169(4)(a) a requirement regarding the form in which the information (including prescribed information) must be contained runs contrary to the precise and unequivocal words that Parliament has used” (para. 284).
- However, the specific information listed in s. 3 of the Regulations was required to be obtained by the ITC claimant in some form (para. 289), a requirement which was satisfied here.
- If (contrary to the view of Owen J), the definition of “supporting documentation” in the Regulations did not have a significant role to play, that definition “does not require that information prescribed by section 3 be in a particular form” (para. 301) and, in particular, para. (h) of that definition “does not impose a requirement that all forms in which information prescribed by section 3 is contained be validly issued or signed by a registrant in respect of a supply made by the registrant” (para. 309).
| Locations of other summaries | Wordcount | |
|---|---|---|
| Tax Topics - Excise Tax Act - Section 169 - Subsection 169(4) - Paragraph 169(4)(a) | no particular form of supplier documentation is required for ITC purposes | 328 |
| Tax Topics - Excise Tax Act - Section 169 - Subsection 169(1) | no requirement that the tax be payable to a particular person | 288 |
Axamit Versa Inc. v. The King, 2022 TCC 163 (Informal Procedure)
The ARQ denied input tax credits claimed by the appellant (“Axamit”) for its 2015 year regarding GST charged by its landlord. Axamit did not provide any document specifically listed in the Input Tax Credit Information (GST/HST) Regulations to the ARQ during the audit or following its filing of its Notice of Objection. However, Gagnon J, after referring to the similar finding in CFI Funding that s. 169(4) “simply provides that the registrant must have obtained the prescribed information in a form that will allow the ITCs to be determined” and that “[h]ow that information is obtained does not matter,” found that it was unnecessary that the GST registration number be set out in a document issued by the landlord, stating (at paras. 50, 53, TaxInterpretations translation):
[I]t does not appear appropriate that the scope of general wording of the preamble to the definition of supporting documentation in the Regulations be limited to the enumeration following the preamble. To the contrary, the text of the preamble allows for the flexibility that Parliament intended. The word "document" in the French version and the word "form" in the English version reflect this choice. The word document [“record” in English] is [broadly] defined in subsection 123(1) … .
[T]he testimony of Appellant's president confirmed that the information for Landlord's GST number included in Appellant's Exhibit Book was obtained as early as 2013 and provided to the external accountants. The Court considers this testimony to be credible … . Appellant had therefore obtained this information prior to the filing of the 2015 annual return containing the claimed ITC. The condition for obtaining the GST number does not require any particular form or that this information be provided to the Agency in order for the Court to grant the appeal.
| Locations of other summaries | Wordcount | |
|---|---|---|
| Tax Topics - Excise Tax Act - Section 223 - Subsection 223(2) | purpose of s. 223(2) | 253 |
| Tax Topics - Excise Tax Act - Section 169 - Subsection 169(4) | unnecessary that the GST registration number be set out in a document issued by the supplier | 191 |
CFI Funding Trust v. The Queen, 2022 TCC 60
A securitization trust (“CFI”) used a concurrent lease structure under which it became the concurrent (head) lessee of automobiles from automobile dealer and sublessor of the automobiles to the dealership customers, and financed the automobile dealers by prepaying rents under the head leases. Before finding that CFI had satisfied the documentary requirements for claiming ITCs for the HST on the rent prepayments, and in rejecting the Crown position that various CFI spreadsheets did not satisfy its alleged requirement that “a supporting document … must originate from or be signed by the [supplier]” (para. 30), Hogan J stated (at paras. 38, 40 and 48):
[T]he broad term “form” was used in subsection 169(4) of the Act and section 2 of the Regulations because Parliament was mindful of the benefits of paperless record keeping. …
[I]nformation stored on a registrant’s computer server qualifies as supporting documentation. …
[T]he Regulations do not set out a general requirement for the supporting documentation to be issued or signed by the supplier. The definition of “supporting documentation” only requires the document to be issued or signed by the supplier where the documentation does not fit within one of the document types outlined in paragraphs (a) to (g) [of the “includes” definition of “supporting documentation”] or fall within the meaning of “form” as set out in the preamble to the definition.
| Locations of other summaries | Wordcount | |
|---|---|---|
| Tax Topics - Excise Tax Act - Regulations - Input Tax Credit Information (GST/HST) Regulations - Section 2 - Supporting Documentation | supporting documentation can be originated by the recipient and be in electronic form | 364 |
Morton v. The Queen, 2014 DTC 1093 [at at 3162], 2014 TCC 72 (Informal Procedure)
After having filed returns for 1998-2001 that were essentially correct, the taxpayer submitted fraudulent T1 Adjustment Requests. Bocock J found that the Minister was justified in assessing s. 163(2) penalties for the misrepresentations on the Requests, and for assessing such penalties beyond the normal reassessment period.
The taxpayer's principal argument was that a T1 Adjustment Request is not a "return, form, certificate statement or answer" under the Act, as all these words have specific meanings. Bocock J stated (at para. 22):
The use of this [T1 Adjustment Request] "form", although not officially prescribed under the Act, is a fast, convenient and accepted method by which taxpayers make application for a determination under subsection 152(4.2) of the Act. To suggest that [we] should not consider this "application" as a "form" containing "statements" ... is not legally supportable.