There are some taxpayers who have a financial interest, a legitimate one, in minimizing their tax bill, so they look within the legislation and they have expert advisers to help them, and they adopt a position. That position can be tested with the agency through a rulings process, or they could merely file the return based on that, but they're pushing the envelope.
Some people describe this as the “grace phase”. The agency will look at some of these transactions. The agency position might be that they're offside, so then there's communication back and forth. There's reference to the legislation. This may go through a legislative route. This may go through litigation through the court system.
In some cases—and this goes back to the issue of tax evasion—some of these taxpayers will actually sign a waiver extending the time that the CRA has to finalize its audit. It's very transparent in that sense. The challenge is in deciding where that line is and having an authoritative source establish where the line is. That's why it can take several years. That's why sometimes the Department of Finance will intervene in terms of making the rules of the game clear. To go back to the comments about tax evasion, often these positions are fully disclosed in a very transparent manner.