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GST — waiver of penalty

My client was a small corporation that developed land. In 1991, my client sold some commercial real estate to another developer, for over $2 million. The other developer was not yet GST-registered. My client and its lawyer did not realize that my client was required to collect GST on the sale. (For most sales of commercial real estate, the purchaser reports the tax directly to Revenue Canada.)

Several years later, Revenue Canada assessed my client for some $140,000 in GST, plus interest and penalty. After years of litigation, my client was eventually able to recover the GST and much of the interest from the other developer (which got the GST back from Revenue Canada by way of input tax credit). The penalty was another matter.

I applied to the Revenue Canada Fairness committee for waiver of the penalty, explaining how my client qualified under various grounds of Revenue Canada's "Fairness" guidelines. My request was rejected. It was clear from the rejection letter that the committee had not properly understood my submission, since the reasons they gave were not related to the basis on which I applied for waiver.

I applied for a review by the Director of the local office, explaining again in detail why my client qualified for relief. This time my letter was understood. Three months later, I received a letter advising that the penalty would be cancelled. By this point (early 2001) the penalty had grown to about $50,000.

Penalty vanished!