Tax court of Canada | Tax | Income tax | Administration and enforcement
Corporation brought motion regarding representation in general procedure matter and application for extension of time to appeal with respect to assessments made for 2014 and 2015 taxation years. Motion dismissed and application granted. Tax Court of Canada Act does not permit anyone other than lawyer to represent corporation in general procedure matter. This was clear from expressed language of s. 17.1 of Act. Secondly, Rule 30(2) would leave matter to court’s discretion. There was no evidence that corporation could not pay for lawyer. Owner of corporation could be expected to be primary witness and general rule was that lawyer could not also be witness in proceeding. Notice of appeal filed was not acceptable notice of appeal and this alone was convincing that corporation should be represented by lawyer in hearing. Owner had already needed Court order to extend time to file appeal and had not arrived at Court ready to proceed at designated time. Corporation had not adduced sufficient evidence to convince that special or exceptional circumstances existed. Order would provide that corporation had 90 days to file fresh as amended notice of appeal by counsel.
Suchocki Accounting Ltd. v. The Queen (2018), 2018 CarswellNat 2132, 2018 TCC 88, Patrick Boyle J. (T.C.C. [General Procedure]).
