Al Meghji

The Retail Council of Canada brought a motion for leave to intervene in an appeal concerning whether Aeroplan Miles issued to the appellant constituted gift certificates under the Excise Tax Act.

The Tax Court of Canada dismissed the motion, finding that the proposed intervener had only a jurisprudential interest in the outcome and that its intervention would prejudice the determination of the parties' rights by expanding the scope of the appeal into a broader policy debate about loyalty programs.

The Appellant appealed reassessments denying input tax credits for HST paid to employment agencies that provided temporary workers.

The Minister argued the agencies were incapable of providing the services and the Appellant failed to meet documentary requirements.

The Tax Court of Canada allowed the appeal, finding that the agencies did provide the services and the Appellant's records satisfied the documentary requirements under the Excise Tax Act.

The appellant, CIBC, appealed assessments denying its claims for GST rebates.

CIBC argued that the supply it received from PC Bank under a Financial Services Agreement and a Loyalty Services Agreement was an exempt financial service.

The Tax Court of Canada held that the predominant element of the single compound supply was a bundle of rights allowing CIBC to solicit Loblaw's customers, which falls within the exclusion in paragraph (r.5) of the definition of 'financial service' in subsection 123(1) of the Excise Tax Act.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant brought a motion at the outset of its GST appeal arguing that the doctrines of res judicata or abuse of process precluded the respondent from re-litigating the nature of supplies it received from a bank, which had been determined to be exempt financial services in a 2009 decision.

The Tax Court of Canada dismissed the motion, finding that retroactive amendments to the Excise Tax Act narrowed the definition of financial services and that the factual context of the amended agreements differed from the prior decision, meaning the same question was not being decided.

The parties brought a joint motion under section 58 of the Tax Court of Canada Rules (General Procedure) to determine whether paragraph 40(3.6)(a) of the Income Tax Act applied to deem the appellant's loss from the disposition of shares in a foreign subsidiary to be nil.

The appellant argued that the loss was a foreign exchange loss under subsection 39(2) and therefore excluded from subsection 40(3.6).

The Tax Court held that, based on the Federal Court of Appeal's decision in R. v. Bank of Montreal, the loss must first be determined under subsection 40(1), which is subject to the overriding rule in subsection 40(3.6).

Therefore, the loss was deemed to be nil, and the question was answered in the affirmative.