Thank you.
The court felt the postponement was justified on the grounds of fairness, as it should allow the taxpayer to challenge the CRA's assessment that the proposed amendments would not apply to this case.
To add to the mix here, it isn't just one taxpayer and a $10,000 donation at stake, but Edwards is a lead case for eight other appeals that are being held in abeyance. And in the court's words, “thousands of taxpayers are waiting in the wings”.
One other quick problem is a tax accounting problem. It goes to the integrity of companies' financial statements and the capital markets. You can't reflect these tax changes in your financial statements unless a bill has been introduced in Parliament or is passed into law. That creates a financial statement reporting problem.
I'll conclude my remarks. I have two asks for Parliament.
The first one is to ask Parliament to act decisively and to pass Bill C-48 to essentially clean the slate of this old pending legislation and to finally bring the Income Tax Act up to date. Taxpayers could then move on and focus on running their business, and the CRA could carry on administering and collecting tax in a more stable system.
The second ask is perhaps more of a plea than an ask. Could we please try to get onto a regular track of legislative amendments?