BETWEEN:
DARRYL SEUNATH,
Appellant,
and
HIS MAJESTY THE KING,
Respondent.
Appeal heard on October 15, 2025, November 26, 2025 and June 12, 2026 at Toronto, Ontario
Before: The Honourable Justice Jenna Clark
Appearances:
For the Appellant:
The Appellant himself
Counsel for the Respondent:
Udani Perera
Carrie Calabrese
JUDGMENT
The appeal of the reassessment made under the Income Tax Act of the Appellant’s 2021 taxation year is dismissed without costs.
Signed this 23rd day of July 2026.
“Jenna Clark”
Clark J.
BETWEEN:
DARRYL SEUNATH,
Appellant,
and
HIS MAJESTY THE KING,
Respondent.
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
Clark J.
1Darryl Seunath, the Appellant in this matter, challenges the Minister’s assessment of tax liability for his 2021 taxation year in respect of employment income from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).
2The Appellant also seeks declaratory relief and damages related to his managers’ decision to place him on involuntary, unpaid leave in 2021.
A. Background
3The Appellant testified on his own behalf. Despite efforts to redirect the Appellant to the issue of employment income received in 2021, the Appellant’s testimony was preoccupied with the fairness of dealings with his employer.
4The Appellant advised that he is currently pursuing matters related to his employment with the CRA in the Ontario Superior Court and appealed an interlocutory matter to the Ontario Divisional Court.
5The Appellant called his father Richard Seunath to testify. Richard, also a former employee of the CRA, testified about the emotional and financial impact of the employment dispute on his son. His testimony shed no light on how much employment income the Appellant received in 2021.
6The Appellant testified that he was hired by the CRA in January of 2003. Over the years he worked as an auditor and an appeals officer. The Appellant’s annual salary for the 2021 year was set at $70,749.
7The Appellant reported employment income of $43,613.58 in 2021. It is common ground that $3,449.61 of this amount was received from employment as a server, while $40,163.97 of that amount was in respect of payment from the Receiver General of Canada for employment with the CRA.
8The Appellant’s position is that the figure of $40,163.98 does not reflect how much he received in respect of employment with the CRA in 2021. He did not provide the Court with what he says is the accurate amount. He asserted at times that he received more income than assessed, and at others suggested that he may have received less.
9The Appellant took medical leave at the beginning of 2021 and testified that he took pre‑authorized vacation leave from June 11, 2021 until July 9, 2021. He testified that he was put on involuntary unpaid medical leave as of July 12, 2021.
10The Appellant worked from home. His access to CRA computer systems was removed on July 12, 2021 and he was not able to work for the remainder of the year. He testified that he was not permitted to return to work until he completed an Occupational Fitness Assessment. He did ultimately return to work in May of 2023.
11There was a dispute between the Appellant and his supervisors about hours worked between May 17 to June 10, 2021. The Appellant testified that he properly completed time sheets reporting that he was in training during that time.
12The Appellant’s supervisors re‑coded those time sheets to reflect unauthorized leave without pay between May 17 to June 10, 2021. The Appellant had already received pay for that period. The CRA clawed back amounts related to the alleged over payment in 2023, after the Appellant returned from his unpaid leave.
13The Appellant asserted that he was in fact paid his annual salary of $70,749 and the Minister of National Revenue underassessed his tax liability for 2021. The Appellant also claimed that amounts were stolen from him by the CRA. I am only able to understand these contradictory assertions as the Appellant meant that he believed that he was entitled to $70,749 in 2021 and viewed the shortfall as theft.
B. The Appellant’s income from employment was the amount received by him in the year
14Taxation of income from employment is set out in subsection 5(1) of the Income Tax Act:
5 (1) Subject to this Part, a taxpayer’s income for a taxation year from an office or employment is the salary, wages and other remuneration, including gratuities, received by the taxpayer in the year.[1]
15The operative word for the purposes of this appeal is received. The word receive means to get, derive benefits from or from which to enjoy advantages.[2] Income from employment is determined by the cash method.[3] I must determine if the Minister’s determination of the amount received by the Appellant in 2021 was incorrect.
16The Appellant incorrectly asserted in his Notice of Appeal that the Respondent bore the evidentiary burden in this case. The onus is on the Appellant to demonstrate that the amount reported on the T4 form is incorrect.[4]
17This Court does not determine how much an employee ought to be paid by their employer. My only jurisdiction in this appeal is to determine, as a question of fact, how much the Appellant received in employment income in 2021. A dispute about whether the Appellant was entitled to receive more in that year is a matter for another forum.
18The Appellant admitted during cross‑examination that he did not have any bank records or pay stubs establishing how much he received in 2021. Those documents were within the Appellant’s power to produce, and he provided no explanation as to why he did not produce them.
19Instead, the Appellant produced timesheets and records that he claims were tampered with by his supervisors. He pointed to three different Records of Employment for the 2021 year issued by the Government of Canada. The first was for $20,410.93, the second for $20,139.74 and the last for $20,139.58.
20The Appellant claimed those discrepancies established that his T4 slip was incorrect.
21The records of employment are of little assistance in establishing how much the Appellant received in income from the CRA in 2021. The Appellant admitted that he received a lump sum payment in 2021 that is not reflected in the records of employment. The Appellant’s evidence established that the CRA paid the Appellant for the period May 17 to June 10 but was later of the view that the Appellant was not entitled to pay for that period. That testimony supports my conclusion that the record of hours the CRA says the Appellant worked in 2021 did not align with the employment income received by the Appellant from the CRA in 2021.
22The Appellant asserted in his closing submissions that his annual salary for the period was $70,749 and he asked that his tax liability for the 2021 taxation year be assessed on that basis. The Appellant adduced no evidence indicating that he received $70,749 in employment income in respect of the 2021 taxation year.
23I also cannot conclude that the Appellant received less than $40,163.97 in respect of his employment with the CRA in 2021.
24The Appellant produced a letter dated July 12, 2022 that identified overpayment of employment income made to him in respect of his 2021 taxation year. That letter stated that those amounts would be recovered from the Appellant once he returned to work.[5] The Appellant returned to work in 2023.
25Repayment of amounts received as employment income in a later year do not alter the amount received as salary in an earlier year.[6] Claw backs made in a subsequent year impact the amount received by the Appellant in that subsequent year.
26The Respondent pointed the Court to the decision of this Court in Rose v R,[7] where the Federal Court of Appeal stated at paragraph 3:
In the proceedings in the Tax Court, Mr. Rose asserted that the T4 slip upon which the Minister relied had overstated his earnings by approximately $16,000. He suggested that the difference might represent a reimbursement of expenses that the had paid on behalf of his employer. However, he presented no evidence in support of his assertion except his belief. He did not present pay stubs or bank statements, or any analysis or reconciliation, that might have assisted his case. He argued that the statutory deductions indicated on the T4 slip were consistent with gross earnings that were considerably lower than the earnings shown on the T4 slip, but the Tax Court Judge accepted that the argument of counsel for the Crown that such a discrepancy does not necessarily indicate that the amount shown as gross income is incorrect. The Tax Court Judge dismissed his appeal for lack of evidence that was capable of establishing that the assessment was incorrect.
27Such is the case in this appeal. The Appellant did seek to adduce additional evidence, discussed below, however none of that evidence was relevant to establishing how much employment income the Appellant received in 2021.
28The question I am to answer is not how much the Appellant was entitled to receive in 2021; it is how much he actually received in 2021. The Appellant did not adduce evidence capable of establishing how much he received in 2021 in respect of his employment with the CRA.
C. Issues Raised Beyond the Scope of this Court’s Jurisdiction
29The Appellant sought relief beyond the scope of the jurisdiction of Court, including a request for declarations that the Appellant’s supervisors breached the Appellant’s rights under the Income Tax Act, claims for awards under various heads of damages, and a request for declarations requiring amendments to the Appellant’s T4 slips.
30As I explained to the Appellant during the course of the hearing, the jurisdiction of this Court is set out in section 12 of the Tax Court of Canada Act.[8] The scope of the Tax Court’s ability to dispose of appeals is set out in section 171 of the Act and does not extend to awards of damages or granting declaratory relief.[9] The Tax Court is to determine the accuracy of the assessment, and not the process by which it has been made.[10]
31This is a unique case, wherein the impugned conduct is not just that of the CRA as the agent responsible for the Minister’s assessment of tax, but also the CRA as the Appellant’s employer.
32The conduct of the Minister of National Revenue or their delegate is not a consideration relevant to matters within the jurisdiction of the Tax Court. This Court also has no jurisdiction to determine how much the Appellant ought to have been paid by his employer. This Court is tasked with properly applying the Act to the facts before it; in this case there are no facts before me that indicate the Minister’s assessment of tax under section 5 of the Act was incorrect.
D. Procedural Issues
33The Appellant made a number of procedural requests, objections and motions. I addressed those procedural matters as they arose and explained my decisions to the Appellant as they were made.
34This appeal was brought in the Informal Procedure and was originally scheduled for hearing October 15, 2025. Evidence was closed on that day and the matter was scheduled for oral submissions to be heard on November 26, 2025. Procedural matters were addressed on November 26, 2025. The parties completed oral submissions on June 12, 2026.
Requests to adjourn October 15, 2026 hearing date
35On October 5, 2025, the Appellant wrote to the Court seeking an adjournment of the October 15, 2025 hearing date. The Appellant wrote that he needed time to prepare for the Tax Court appeal as well as his two Ontario court matters. That adjournment request was denied in advance of the hearing, without prejudice to the Appellant’s ability to produce details supporting a renewed request to be made on the day of his hearing.
36The Appellant made a second written adjournment request on October 14, 2025. The Appellant stated he needed time to serve subpoenas on five potential witnesses. That request was also denied in advance of the hearing.
37At the outset of the October 15, 2025 hearing the Appellant stated that he was not renewing his adjournment requests.
38The Appellant changed his mind during the course of his testimony and told me that he wished to seek an adjournment so that he could cross‑examine his supervisors. The Appellant presented printouts of emails that he obtained through an access to information request, and he wished to call witnesses to speak to those emails. The Appellant said that he wanted to have an opportunity to cross‑examine the people involved in his employment dispute because he believed that the transcript of his Tax Court appeal would be used against him in his Ontario court matters. The Respondent opposed the adjournment request.
39I denied the request. The merits of his employment dispute were not within the jurisdiction of the Tax Court. Additionally, the Appellant was able to share the content of excluded emails in his testimony.
40I referred the Appellant to Rupolo v Canada[11], which stands for the proposition that a judge is not obligated to grant an adjournment, even if it is uncontested. Parties must be prepared to proceed at the scheduled time, or risk losing their case. The Appellant provided no reason why he could not have subpoenaed witnesses in advance of the hearing. I also explained that section 18.2 of the Tax Court of Canada Act says the court shall adjourn a hearing where in the opinion of the court it would be impractical in all circumstances to proceed. I did not conclude that it would be impractical to proceed.
41I also referred the Appellant to Adams v Canada,[12]
The day has passed when courts could allow litigants the luxury of being at their beck and call. Courts are public institutions [in] the resolution of disputes and cost substantial public money. Court congestion and delay is a serious public concern. Parties who launch proceedings at any level with the intention of putting them in a "holding pattern" for their own private purposes may be called to account for their waste and abuse of a public resource. They also risk having those proceedings dismissed.
Cross‑examination on the Respondent’s affidavit
42The Respondent filed an affidavit appending the Appellant’s T4 slips for the 2021 taxation year, pursuant to subsection 244(9) of the Act. The Appellant opposed the affidavit on the basis that the affiant did not have any personal or direct knowledge of the Appellant’s income.
43I allowed the affidavit to be tendered as an exhibit given that the affiant was offered for cross‑examination. The affiant, Thi Hoang Vy Nguyen, resided in Vancouver, British Columbia and appeared in the Toronto courtroom by video link.
44The sound quality of the video link was poor. After unsuccessful efforts to repair the audio transmission, Respondent’s counsel’s cell phone speaker was used to supplement the audio transmission. The video quality of the call was not impacted. The Appellant expressed concern about proceeding using the supplemented audio. I asked him to start his examination to see if the issues were resolved.
45There were no further audio or video issues with the transmission. The Appellant had a fulsome opportunity to conduct his cross‑examination and concluded by advising the Court that he had no further questions.
46Both parties closed their evidence on October 15, 2025. The hearing spanned the entire day and the parties were left with insufficient time to make closing arguments. The parties agreed to return to court on November 26, 2025.
47On November 12, 2025 the Appellant filed a written motion seeking an order entitling him to cross‑examine Ms. Nguyen in person. The Appellant stated that he was not able to see Ms. Nguyen during his cross‑examination and he could not confirm that the witness was not coached or prompted by another person. He was also concerned that the affiant had accessed unauthorized materials, and he was not able to ensure the affiant was not influenced by others during his cross‑examination.
48The Respondent opposed the request on the basis that the video link was not impacted by technical difficulties and there was no factual basis for the Appellant’s allegations.
49I heard from both parties on the issue on November 26, 2025. While I did not share the Appellant’s concerns of witness coaching or testimony assistance, I did agree there were technical difficulties with the cross‑examination resulting in the need to use a speaker phone to supplement audio.
50Perception of fairness is an important consideration for the Court, particularly when an Appellant is self‑represented. The appropriate remedy was to declare the affidavit unnecessary given that the Appellant had already put the T4 slip in evidence. This solution addressed the Appellant’s earlier opposition to the introduction of the affidavit as well as his concern that his cross‑examination had proceeded with inadequate visual feed. It was not necessary to order the witness to travel from British Columbia to Ontario and reopen evidence to have the same cross‑examination conducted in person, when the underlying affidavit had no probative value.
Appellant’s requests for additional testimony not relevant to triable issue
51The Appellant requested eight subpoenas on November 7, 2025. The Respondent raised this matter with the Court. During submissions from the parties, it became apparent that the Appellant sought to reopen evidence in order to call various managers and supervisors to speak to the CRA’s decision to place the Appellant on unpaid leave.
52I concluded that the new evidence was not relevant to determining how much employment income the Appellant received in 2021.
Fourth adjournment request granted on November 26, 2026
53After I delivered my oral reasons on November 26, 2026 explaining my decision not to reopen evidence, the Appellant made a fourth adjournment request.
54The Appellant stated that he wished to speak to legal counsel. I agreed to adjourn the matter in order to permit the Appellant to consult with counsel. The Appellant agreed that 60 days was a reasonable time to have any potential legal counsel put themselves on the record. Closing submissions were to proceed virtually by video conference.
55The Appellant wrote to the Court on May 6, 2026 taking issue with the Order granting his adjournment request. The Appellant stated that his request was made not to retain counsel, but merely to consult with counsel.
56The Appellant also wrote to the Court advising that he did not agree to or consent to a virtual hearing. I granted the Appellant’s request to hear closing submissions in person. They were heard June 12, 2026.
57On June 12, 2026, I asked the Appellant to clarify his objection to my Order adjourning the hearing from the November 26, 2025 date. Instead of explaining why he took issue with the Order that granted the relief he had sought, the Appellant again renewed his statement that he would have liked to have had time to consult with counsel.
58I struggle to find the logical thread connecting the Appellant’s conflicting requests and complaints. The Appellant was granted an adjournment that afforded him more than six additional months in order to consult with counsel.
Appellant’s motion for production of records and to adduce new evidence
59On June 2, 2026 the Appellant filed a written motion for production of records, and again seeking to adduce new evidence. The Appellant claimed that he had been made aware that information relating to his appeal had been shared between several CRA employees on or around October 8, 2025.
60No legal or factual basis was offered in support of the request. It is clear to me that any such communication, if it did occur, related only to the Appellant’s allegations of CRA misconduct and not to the issue properly before the Court. I dismissed the motion.
E. Disposition
61This Court does not have jurisdiction to grant declaratory relief or award damages. Only one issue raised by the Appellant was within the Tax Court’s jurisdiction: did the Minister of National Revenue correctly determine the Appellant’s employment from income in 2021?
62The Appellant did not establish that he received less (or more) than the amount of $40,163.97 in respect of employment with the CRA in 2021. The appeal is therefore dismissed.
Signed this 23rd day of July, 2026.
“Jenna Clark”
Clark J.
2026 TCC 140
COURT FILE NO.:
2024-1944(IT)I
STYLE OF CAUSE:
DARRYL SEUNATH AND HIS MAJESTY THE KING
PLACE OF HEARING:
Toronto, Ontario
DATES OF HEARING:
October 15, 2025, November 26, 2025 and June 12, 2026
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT BY:
The Honourable Justice Jenna Clark
DATE OF JUDGMENT:
July 23, 2026
APPEARANCES:
For the Appellant:
The Appellant himself
Counsel for the Respondent:
Udani Perera
Carrie Calabrese
COUNSEL OF RECORD:
For the Appellant:
Name:
N/A
Firm:
N/A
For the Respondent:
Marie-Josée Hogue Deputy Attorney General of Canada Ottawa, Canada
1Income Tax Act, RSC 1985, c. I, as amended (Act).
2Simser v R, 2004 FCA 414 at para 39, 40.
3Nowegijick v The Queen, 1983 CanLII 18 (SCC), 83 DTC 5041 (SCC); Markman v MNR, 1989 CanLII 10164 (TCC), [1989] 1 CTC 2381 at p 2383; Kuwalek v R, 2006 TCC 624 at para 9; Deschesnes v R, 2015 CarswellNat 2701 at 23.
4Mikhailova v R, 2009 TCC 120; Hayfron-Benjamin v R, 2015 FCA 196; Hickman Motors Ltd v HMQ, 1997 CanLII 357 (SCC), 1997 SCJ no 62 at 92.
5Exhibit A1, Tab 17.
6Morin v R, 1974 CanLII 2682 (FCTTD), [1975] CTC 106 at 23, 24; Sussex Group – Allan Sutton Realty Corp. v Canada, [2024] TCJ no 6 at paras 21 and 22.
7Rose v R, 2002 CanLII 79587 (TCC), [2002] 3 CTC 2136, affirmed 2003 FCA 12.
[8] Tax Court of Canada Act, RSC 1985, c. T-2, as amended,
[9] Federal Courts Act, RSC 1985, c. F-7 sections 18 and 18.1; Iris Technologies Inc v Canada at paras 31 – 44.
10Bykov v Canada, 2025 FCA 103; Hud v Canada, 2024 Carswell Nat 1338; at 39; Main Rehabilitation Co v Canada, 2004 FCA 403 at para 9; see also sections 18, 18.1 and 18.5 of the Federal Courts Act; Swift v Canada, 2004 FCA 316.
11Rupolo v Canada, 2010 FCA 289.
12Adams v Canada, 1994 174 NR 314 at para 16.