CRA, courts clamp down on write-offs for private journey

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One of many advantages typically cited by small-business homeowners is the power to jot down off numerous bills for tax functions. The misperception about what may be legitimately written off brings to thoughts one in every of my favorite Seinfeld episodes, The Bundle, during which Kramer convinces Jerry to say his stereo was damaged throughout transport to gather a $400 insurance coverage fee from the publish workplace.

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Kramer: “Jerry, all these large corporations, they write off every part.”
Jerry: “You don’t even know what a write-off is.”
Kramer: “Do you?”
Jerry: “No, I don’t.”
Kramer: “However they do, they usually’re those writing it off.”

The issue with write-offs is that to ensure that a enterprise expense to be correctly deductible for tax functions, it should be legitimately incurred for the aim of incomes revenue. In any other case, the Canada Income Company can deny the deduction in addition to assess an worker or shareholder profit, leading to double taxation. As soon as, as a result of the expense is disallowed as a deduction, and a second time when the worth of the profit turns into taxable to the shareholder or worker.

That’s precisely what occurred in a Federal Court docket of Attraction case determined earlier this month.

The case concerned 4 siblings in Ontario who function a big dairy farm enterprise that manufactures a wide range of merchandise, together with cheese and yogurt, which are offered all through North America. The enterprise is included, and every sibling is a shareholder and an worker of the enterprise.

For the Dec. 31, 2015, taxation yr, the CRA reassessed the company to disallow practically $500,000 of enterprise bills. Of those bills, practically $355,000 of them associated to journey bills (together with meals). As well as, the CRA reassessed every of the siblings to incorporate numerous quantities referring to the non-deductible journey of their revenue that it deemed private, saying every of them had acquired both a shareholder or employment profit.

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The quantities had been vital. One sibling, the president, was reassessed to incorporate $211,621 in his revenue for 2014 and $156,696 for 2015 as shareholder advantages, which represented a part of the denied journey bills paid by the company for himself, his spouse and his mom. Equally, one other sibling, who acted as treasurer and director of human assets, needed to embody $237,647 and $181,737, respectively, as shareholder advantages. The third sibling’s shareholder advantages totalled practically $27,000 over the 2 years underneath overview, whereas the fourth’s had been virtually $50,000.

In tax court docket, the taxpayers mentioned all journey bills paid by the corporate had been incurred for the aim of gaining or producing enterprise revenue, similar to assembly suppliers worldwide or creating the corporate’s enterprise market. They mentioned the journey bills “weren’t of a private nature” and mustn’t have been included within the computation of their revenue. In addition they argued that shareholder advantages shouldn’t apply to 2 of the 4 siblings since they solely owned most popular shares within the firm, not widespread shares.

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The CRA disagreed, saying that the disallowed journey bills weren’t incurred by the corporate for the aim of gaining or producing revenue from a enterprise.

Throughout the preliminary trial, the corporate’s monetary controller testified, however her testimony was “imprecise and inconsistent.” Because the decide mentioned: “Since she was assigned to cope with the audit, it’s not credible that, as (the company’s) monetary controller, she didn’t know which bills had been private and which bills had been business-related.”

The corporate president’s testimony was additionally discovered to not be credible. He said that each one disallowed journey bills paid by the corporate had been incurred for enterprise functions, however he was unable to offer any affordable clarification nor any documentary proof to justify the deductibility of the journey bills by the company.

Among the many complete journey bills deducted by the corporate, the CRA auditor was ready to permit roughly $200,000 of journey bills with out some other supporting paperwork aside from credit-card statements for journeys to Dubai for an annual commerce present, and journeys to Chicago, New York, Vancouver, San Diego and Washington.

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Different journey bills for journeys to Paris, Aruba, Nassau and Mont-Tremblant weren’t allowed, nor had been bills paid to Sunwing Holidays, because the auditor concluded these had been private bills paid by the company for the advantage of the siblings and numerous different relations.

Different disallowed journey bills included: credit-card prices incurred in Sint Maarten, together with numerous restaurant meals; bills on the Fairmont Tremblant in Quebec, Ritz-Carlton in Aruba and Ritz-Carlton in Grand Cayman; and a few bills incurred by a sibling’s partner at Holt Renfrew in Montreal.

To justify any of the disallowed journey bills, the decide mentioned “it might have been affordable to count on that some supporting documentation — specifically emails, invites to conferences, agendas of conferences, and so forth. — would have been adduced on the listening to indicating the needs of the assorted journey bills.”

With out such proof or documentation, the decide concluded the bills had been merely not deductible and the non-public bills had been included in every of the sibling’s incomes as both shareholder or worker advantages.

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The siblings and company appealed the decrease court docket determination, and a brand new trial was held on the Federal Court docket of Attraction on June 17, 2024. In a brief, six-page determination delivered orally from the bench, the three-judge panel of the appellate court docket unanimously upheld the decrease court docket’s determination.

The panel mentioned the tax court docket decide correctly weighed the proof earlier than her, noting the “complete absence of documentary proof” to again up the taxpayers’ claims that bills had been incurred for the aim of incomes enterprise revenue.

The panel additionally addressed the argument of two siblings who held solely most popular shares and felt they might not be assessed as shareholders on this case. The panel famous, nevertheless, that the Tax Act “doesn’t make a distinction between widespread shareholders and most popular shareholders” when assessing shareholder advantages.

Because of this, “There may be … regardless of right here to intervene,” the panel mentioned.

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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