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GST — reducing assessment by almost 90%

My client was the sole director of a company that carried on a heating contracting business. The company was late in filing its GST returns, and two years of its records were destroyed when my client's truck caught fire (he had the records in his truck because he was taking them to a new accountant). My client's accountant asked the CRA what to do, and was told to refile based on the previous year's filings for which there were records.

Two years later, the business was audited by the CRA. The auditor used the company's bank deposit records, and assessed the company for some $255,000, including penalty and interest going back over 10 years.

The company was now inactive and had no assets, but my client could be liable as a director for the company's GST debt. Accordingly, I filed a Notice of Objection for the company.

I demonstrated that the auditor's calculations were wrong in various ways. First, a calculation of GST based on bank deposits should be 7/107ths of the deposits, not 7%. Second, there were numerous deposits that were transfers of money from my client's other bank accounts, when the company needed money, and thus did not represent taxable sales.

Third, the company was entitled to input tax credits for GST paid on expenses. Normally one needs the original invoices to be able to claim input tax credits, but the invoices had been lost in the truck fire. I was able to show that the expenses had indeed been incurred, and from one major supplier I obtained copies of their invoices to my client's company, which fortunately had not yet been discarded even though they were over 10 years old. I demonstrated, based on my published commentaries which had been approved by the Tax Court of Canada, that my client did not need to have the invoices now as long as we should convince the CRA that he did have them at some point in the past. I also demonstrated that the ITCs allowed should be 68% of sales, rather than the 30% allowed by the auditor.

Finally, I provided detailed evidence showing that the company had stopped carrying on business as of a particular date, so that all deposits to the bank account after that date were either account transfers or deposits on behalf of another company.

The CRA appeals officer asked for more information, and in discussions with him, I managed to get him to increased the allowable ITCs to 72% of the sales. He agreed with all of my submissions, and reduced the GST owing on the assessment to about $28,000.

The client, who was no longer facing the loss of his home and all his assets, was delighted with the outcome.

(2005)