Budget 2023 proposed amendments to the Income Tax Act (“ITA”) to allow for the sale of a “qualifying business” to an Employee Ownership Trust (“EOT”). The rules are effective as of January 1, 2024. There must be a qualifying business transfer to the EOT, which occurs when a taxpayer disposes of shares of a subject corporation to an EOT …
Generally, the rules introduced in Bill C-208 were designed to allow a sale of shares that otherwise qualify for the capital gains exemption to be sold to a non-arm’s length corporation (referred to here as the “business transfer rules”). The business transfer rules allow the vendor to benefit from the capital gains exemption without being recharacterized as a dividend under …
Budget 2023 The Federal Budget 2023 introduced several amendments to strengthen and modernize the General Anti-Avoidance Rule (“GAAR”). Some of the more notable amendments include the changes to the definition of “Avoidance Transaction” as well as the introduction of the concept of “Economic Substance”. Avoidance Transaction – This test has been significantly broadened by replacing the “primary purpose” test with …
The Canada Revenue Agency’s prescribed rate of interest will increase from 2% to 3% on October 1, 2022. A prescribed rate loan strategy allows high-income earners to income split with their family members (spouses, children, grandchildren, etc.) who earn income taxed at a lower marginal tax rate or earn no income at all. The strategy requires the high-income individual …
With a top personal tax rate in Ontario of 53.53%, the tax spread between dividend income and capital gains is significant. As a result, planning has evolved over the last number of years whereby a taxpayer creates a capital gain as a means of extracting corporate funds in lieu of or in combination with paying themselves a dividend/salary, which would …
Canada levies tax on the basis of an individual’s residency. Generally, an individual is subject to Canadian tax on his/her worldwide income if he/she is a resident of Canada. The residency status of an individual is a question of fact to be determined by taking into account all of the circumstances of the individual. The most important factor in determining …
The Federal budget for 2020-2021 was initially scheduled to be presented in the House of Commons on March 30, 2020. This was of course delayed as a result of Covid-19. Fast forward to January 2021, and a lot has changed with Canada’s economic situation. Are tax increases coming? Most likely. The Federal government has been very open that the typical “1%”, …
There are are at least 5 strategies that can be executed under existing tax legislation to use COVID-19 to generate tax relief. These strategies were originally posted by us 7 weeks ago on March 19th. In particular, strategy No. 5 discussed below anticipated a reduction in the prescribed interest rate to 1% from the current rate of 2%, which will now be …
What Happens on Death? For illustrative purposes, we will assume that a taxpayer dies (with no surviving spouse) owning shares of a private company with a $1M capital gain. On death, there is a capital gain of $1M on the deemed disposition of the shares owned by the deceased, half of which is taxable. This would result in approximately …
S.A. v Metro Vancouver Housing Corp. In the recently released case S.A. v Metro Vancouver Housing Corp.,[1] the Supreme Court of Canada (Supreme Court) had its first opportunity to consider the nature of Henson trusts. Henson trusts are settled for the benefit of a person with disabilities who relies on publicly funded social assistance benefits. The issue in …
