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Income tax — officers of company were acting as outside sales reps, not employees

My clients A and B were the CEO and the President of Xco, a company that sold electronics. But they were also sales reps who provided their services to Xco through their own companies, Aco and Bco. Aco and Bco were paid commissions.

The CRA proposed to reassess Aco and Bco to impose extra tax and deny deductions on the basis that Aco and Bco were each carrying on a "personal services business". Essentially the CRA auditor concluded that A and B were acting as employees of Xco, so that their relationship to Xco was really one of employment. If that was so, then Aco and Bco would each be carrying on a "personal services business" and the reassessment would be correct.

I provided the auditor with a detailed analysis showing that Xco was successful because of A's and B's work as independent contractor sales representatives. They originally had no ownership in Xco, and took partial ownership only because it was not being run properly.

I was able to show that A and B were sufficiently independent that they were not working as employees of Xco. I showed that when the case-law criteria distinguishing employee from independent contractor were considered, it was clear that A and B were on the "contractor" side. Their sales services were quite separate from their roles as officers of Xco.

I quoted extensively from case law that has held that an officer such as a company's President can be an independent contractor to the company with respect to additional work the person does. I also demonstrated that in many cases, the Courts have held salespersons to be independent contractors.

Although the auditor disagreed and issued the reassessment, a CRA Appeals Officer reversed that decision with no further work required from me.

Problem vanished!

(2016)