Words and Phrases - "matching principle"

Approximately eight years after the taxation year in question, the taxpayer made a s. 152(4.2) application to CRA to allow the personal deduction by him of rental expenses that had been incurred under leases of equipment (used in his machinist business) that had been entered into in the name of his corporation (which was inactive except for entering into those leases). Boswell J rejected a submission (at para. 23) that “it was unfair for the Minister’s delegate not to ‘match’ the expenses he incurred in paying the rental payments for the two machines against the income he earned by using the machines, and…although his corporation’s name was on the lease with CIT, the corporation was in fact inactive,” and stated (at paras. 24, 25):

[T]he matching principle is not a rule of law which dictates or requires that expenses must always be matched with profits; it is simply an accounting principle that a court may or may not consider depending upon the particular facts and circumstances of a case. …

…The Applicant chose to collect revenue generated by the machines personally, rather than through his corporation, and he cannot rely upon an accounting principle to ignore the legal reality of the lease and argue that the cost of the lease payments should be attributed to him personally and deductible from his personal income for the 2001 taxation year. …