Jamie Golombek: In nearly all instances, the taxpayer merely doesn’t meet the qualification standards or their proof strains credulity
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Taxpayers present up in federal court docket nearly each week hoping to hold on to their COVID-19 advantages after being discovered ineligible by the Canada Income Company, however they’re often unsuccessful.
In nearly all instances, the taxpayer merely doesn’t meet the qualification standards or their proof strains credulity. Earlier than delving into the small print of a latest case, right here’s a fast refresher of the principles.
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The Canada Emergency Response Profit (CERB) and its alternative, the Canada Restoration Profit (CRB), have been the 2 predominant COVID-19 advantages out there to people. The CERB was provided for any four-week interval between March 15, 2020, and Oct. 3, 2020. To be eligible, an applicant needed to display they’d earnings of no less than $5,000 from (self-)employment earnings in 2019 or within the 12 months previous their first utility.
The CERB was changed by the CRB, which turned out there for any two-week interval between Sept. 27, 2020, and Oct. 23, 2021, for eligible staff and self-employed staff who suffered a lack of earnings because of the pandemic.
CRB’s eligibility standards have been much like CERB in that they required, amongst different issues, that the person had earned no less than $5,000 in (self-)employment earnings in 2019, 2020 or throughout the 12 months previous the date of their utility.
The CERB and CRB advantages are mostly chosen for overview by the CRA when it’s unclear if the taxpayer earned no less than $5,000 of earnings in a previous qualifying interval.
The commonest sorts of qualifying earnings are employment or self-employment (that’s, enterprise) earnings, however the CRA has accepted that non-eligible dividends (typically these paid out of company earnings taxed on the small enterprise fee) can rely in direction of the minimal $5,000 in earnings required for eligibility since enterprise homeowners have flexibility in how they pay themselves (wage or dividends).
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It was the problem of dividends that turned an issue within the present case, which concerned a taxpayer who utilized for and obtained CERB advantages from March 15, 2020, to Sept. 26, 2020, and CRB advantages from Sept. 27, 2020, to the top of October 2021.
The CRA concluded the taxpayer was not eligible for the advantages as a result of he didn’t earn no less than $5,000 from employment or self-employment for 2019, 2020, 2021 (as relevant), or throughout the 12 months previous the date on which he submitted his functions.
The taxpayer disagreed and in the end took the matter to Federal Court docket, looking for a judicial overview of the CRA’s selections to disclaim him the advantages.
As with prior judicial overview instances, the position of the federal court docket is to not conclude whether or not or not the taxpayer was truly eligible for advantages, however moderately to find out, in mild of the proof and arguments that have been offered to the CRA, whether or not the company’s determination to disclaim the advantages was “affordable.”
Within the years previous to overview, the taxpayer ran a specialised publishing enterprise, primarily aimed toward professionals and contractors within the architectural area. Through the pandemic, a paper scarcity had a major impression on his capability to print, and varied printing homes have been pressured to stop operations. He tried to transform his publication to a digital one as a way to mitigate the results, however his revenues plummeted.
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Though his enterprise had by no means been worthwhile save for one yr up to now, the taxpayer claimed to have obtained $7,000 in dividends from his firm in 2020. On a private stage, the taxpayer additionally by no means declared any private earnings aside from the $7,000 in dividends declared for 2020. This $7,000 in dividends got here underneath CRA scrutiny as a result of a sequence of financial institution transfers forwards and backwards between his registered retirement financial savings plan (RRSP), himself and his company.
The taxpayer testified that he withdrew $10,000 from his RRSP in December 2019 with the plan to switch it to his enterprise checking account as a way to “decrease his enterprise debt ratio … to make it eligible for a grant.”
In keeping with the financial institution statements he offered, he transferred $10,000 from his private checking account on Jan. 4, 2020, to his company’s account. On the identical day, the company then transferred the $10,000 again to him. Three days later, he wrote a cheque for a similar quantity to his brother.
The corporate’s accounting data confirmed that the switch of $10,000 was thought of a cost of $3,000 to his spouse for “writing,” and the $7,000 to the taxpayer was labeled merely as “Withdrawals – House owners.”
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In his 2020 earnings tax return, the taxpayer reported this $7,000 as dividend earnings, however didn’t file a T5 slip from the corporate exhibiting the dividend. The company didn’t produce a 2020 T5 slip till Sept. 12, 2023, following requests from the CRA and its concern that the 2020 “dividend” was “problematic.”
The choose mentioned that underneath Canada’s self-reporting tax system, the onus is on the taxpayer to offer ample proof to help their utility for COVID-19 advantages, and the CRA is entitled to ask the taxpayer to offer extra paperwork or info to show their eligibility past a tax return.
That is supported by earlier jurisprudence, which has discovered that the CRA shouldn’t be required to solely depend on a tax return, however also can think about the proof as an entire, which can embody invoices and buyer cost receipts, in addition to info out there by way of the company’s inner data.
Based mostly on the sequence of transactions between the taxpayer’s private checking account and his enterprise account previous to the cost of the dividend, in addition to that the T5 slip was solely accomplished retroactively in September 2023 following a request from the CRA, the company felt the proof was “not sufficiently credible” to display that he had earned ample earnings to fulfill the earnings eligibility requirement.
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The choose agreed, concluding that the CRA’s selections to disclaim the advantages have been “affordable and justified given the entire proof on file.”
Jamie Golombek, FCPA, FCA, CFP, CLU, TEP, is the managing director, Tax & Property Planning with CIBC Personal Wealth in Toronto. Jamie.Golombek@cibc.com.
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