Less than a year after the Federal Court of Appeal held that a supplier’s delinquent fiscal conduct is irrelevant to an input tax credit claim, the Quebec Court of Appeal has muddied the legal waters with a controversial decision that affirmed that Quebec business are expected as part of an effort to impede tax evasion to conduct due diligence on suppliers in order to be able to obtain input tax credits.
The accounting and legal community is calling on the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board and the Canadian Bar Association to provide more guidance over the role of in-house legal counsel in an exposure draft designed to assist auditors, law firms and management to communicate effectively with each other over audit inquiries.
Taxpayers do not have a general license to “travel back to through time” with the benefit of hindsight to reverse or correct unintended tax consequences of commercial dealings, held the Quebec Court of Appeal in two separate but related rulings.
When Denis Sylvestre began teaching a business strategy course to students at the Université des Grands Lacs in Burundi, he began by citing the example of McDonald’s Corporation – and drew blank stares. He then rattled off the names of four other well-known multinational firms that he had used in the past while teaching at Quebec universities, and still there was no signs of recognition. Just as he had to set aside his PowerPoint presentations and use the chalkboard because of a lack of stable electricity, the Montreal CPA quickly realized his teaching material was out-of-step with the realities faced by students living in one of the five poorest countries in the world.
An ambitious international effort calling for a coordinated approach to rewrite global tax rules over profit shifting risks being undermined by the number of growing countries that are unilaterally introducing significant tax reforms, warn tax experts.
The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), backed by the G20 Finance Ministers, proposed in July 2013 a sweeping series of proposals that take aim at aggressive international tax planning by multinational companies in the wake of intense political scrutiny and public outcry over the likes of Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Starbucks moving billions of profits out of higher-tax countries into low or no-tax jurisdictions.
The plan, known as Base Erosion Profit Shifting (BEPS), lists 15 specific actions that will attempt to tackle tax challenges of the digital economy, establish coherent rules for corporate income taxation, prevent tax treaty abuse, increase transparency by taxpayers, and amend the world’s 3,000 bilateral tax treaties through a multilateral instrument.
A blue-ribbon panel of tax experts has proposed a bold overhaul of Quebec’s tax system that would introduce a new tax mix by slashing $5.9 billion in Quebec personal and business taxes while increasing consumption taxes and fees in a bid to spur economic growth, job creation, and make the province a more competitive place to invest.
Quebec’s tax authorities can issue demand letters and request the disclosure of financial information from third parties located outside of the province to determine whether the taxpayer is subject to the province’s tax laws, ruled Quebec Superior Court.
A letter recently sent to some Canadians “strongly” encouraging the voluntary disclosure of potential undisclosed foreign assets and unreported foreign income is the latest indication that the Canada Revenue Agency is stepping up efforts to crack down on international tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance.
After more than two years of negotiations, Canada and the United Kingdom signed a protocol to amend a tax treaty between the two countries that adds a new “exchange of information” provision and a new clause that would allow a tax authority from one country to “enter the other” to conduct tax audits.
Quebec’s anti-corruption law, adopted more than a year ago in the wake of allegations of bribes, collusion, influence peddling, and widespread corruption in the construction industry, is proving to be good business for accounting firms.
The Tax Court of Canada, in yet another legal blow to Quebec’s tax authorities, chastised Revenue Quebec for expecting business to act as a “taxation police” after it withheld input tax credits from a meat processing company because it ostensibly had not been diligent in its dealings with its suppliers.
