Le 26 mai 2021, la Cour d’appel fédérale dans Friedman c. Ministre du revenu national, 2021 CAF 101, rappelle que le principe applicable au traitement par les juges de la Cour fédérale des décisions de leurs collègues est celui de la courtoisie judiciaire et non pas du stare decisis et que l’omission de respecter ce principe, bien que regrettable, n’est pas une erreur de droit justifiant l’intervention de la Cour d’appel.
By Sarah D. Pinsonnault In Canada (National Revenue) v. Revcon Oilfield Constructors Incorporated, 2015 FC 524, on the grounds of solicitor-client privilege, the Respondent (“Revcon”) refused to produce the documents sought by the Minister of National Revenue as part of its audit of Revcon’s corporate restructuring. Among the documents it claimed privilege over were the “items that would identify Law Firm X, an undisclosed law firm which was retained by the Respondent’s counsel for the purposes of the restructuring transactions being audited” (para. 6). The Federal Court found this claim, along with others, to be largely unfounded and unsupported by any legal authority: “[25] The Respondent has provided me with no authority to support the proposition that the Law Firm X and Nomenclature claims are valid bases upon which to claim solicitor-client privilege. The idea that the identity of a law firm or lawyer retained by a client to provide… Lire la suite
By Ashley KandestinMitchell Gattuso In 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada emphasized that the “meeting of the minds” principle underpins article 1385 C.c.Q as the basic rule for the formation of contracts in Quebec civil law (Québec (Agence du Revenu) c. Services Environnementaux AES inc., 2013 SCC 65). The Court distinguished between the negotium – the agreement into which the parties to a contract intended to enter – and the instrumentum – the oral or written declaration of the intended agreement. This distinction is important given the commercial realities surrounding contractual negotiations, which are often protracted over long periods of time. Sometimes, what a party believed it was agreeing to is not actually reflected in the final draft of the written document eventually signed by the parties. The Court of Appeal re-examined these basic principles, as argued by the parties in the recent case of Canada (Attorney General) c. Groupe… Lire la suite
By Sarah D. Pinsonnault While the Supreme Court of Canada, in AES and Riopel, has allowed for the courts to approve a correction in order for the parties to avoid a tax consequence that they had originally transacted to avoid (summary of which can be read here), the Quebec Court of Appeal recently maintained the rule that, in tax matters, “parties cannot rewrite history and change their transactions because of unintended tax consequences”. In Mac’s Convenience Stores Inc. c. Canada (Procureur général), 2015 QCCA 837, the Court of Appeal upheld the Superior Court’s decision that refused to allow the rectification sought by the Appellant of a corporate resolution that declared a dividend of 136 million dollars which caused unforeseen and adverse tax consequences. It was revealed that the declaration of the dividend was intended by the parties: “[t]he tax adviser conceived the plan […] and documents were prepared to reflect… Lire la suite
Par Jillian Friedman The Supreme Court confirmed in December that Quebec courts are justified in intervening to find, by means of a declaratory judgement, that amendments made by parties to documents associated with transactions are legitimate and necessary. Adjudicating on two separate cases, the Supreme Court considered in Quebec (Agence du Revenu) v. Services Environnementaux AES inc. (2013 SCC 65) (“Services Environnementaux AES”) whether amendments made to transaction documents in order to correct errors that created unintended tax consequences could be validated by the court in the form of a declaratory judgment. Lebel J, in his reasons, confirmed that the law of contracts as applied in Quebec provides for the possibility for the court to confirm corrections of discrepancies between the common intentions of the parties and intentions declared in the documents, where the application for correction is legitimate and the correction does not affect the rights of third parties…. Lire la suite
par Marie-Hélène BeaudoinMcCarthy Tétrault Dans Leclaire c. Agence du revenudu Québec, 2013 QCCS 6083, la Cour devait trancher la question de la taxationde l’essence vendue par des Indiens habitant sur la réserve Mohawk de Kahnawake,eu égard à l’exemption fiscale accordée par l’art. 87 de la Loi sur les Indiens. Les requérants avaientdemandé au tribunal de déclarer que leurs droits ancestraux, soit ceux depouvoir prétendument commercer librement sans être assujettis à aucuneréglementation, leur conféreraient aujourd’hui un droit constitutionnellementgaranti de ne pas être obligés d’agir comme agents percepteurs des autoritésfiscales. Dans cette affaire, la Cour utilise une image bien connue pourvulgariser les notions complexes qui entrent en jeu… l’échange de cadeaux. Les requérants sont tenus de facturerles taxes – TPS et TVQ – sur les transactions effectuées avec leurs clients nonIndiens et ils sont également responsables de verser périodiquement les montantsde taxe perçus au trésor public. Refusant de lefaire, les requérants ont recherché un… Lire la suite