Madam Speaker, I must first say that the Canada Revenue Agency must safeguard the confidential information it receives according to the confidentiality provisions of the Income Tax Act. Therefore, we cannot comment on any specific cases.
Since the inception of the Atlantic groundfish licence retirement program, the matter before us today has received considerable attention by the CRA. The application of the Income Tax Act to these types of payments is a matter of some complexity and disputes.
In general, when a taxpayer disagrees with an assessment, the act provides objections and appeal rights that must be exercised in the manner and within the time frame specified in the act. If a taxpayer fails to exercise his or her objection or appeal right, he or she may choose to request consideration under the taxpayer relief provisions, which are also contained in the Income Tax Act. The court also provide Canadians with an independent review of disputed issues and serves to clarify the law or resolve differences of opinions with the CRA.
The matter considered by the Federal Court was whether the fishers, who had not disputed the tax treatment of the compensation amounts through the objection and appeal process, could benefit from the same tax treatment accorded to the other fishers who had disputed CRA's position.
On May 16, 2011, the Federal Court directed the CRA to reconsider these fishers' requests.
As the minister informed the House on June 21, 2011, “the government will not appeal this decision, and CRA will now reconsider the fishers' claim as requested by the Federal Court”.
The CRA has now reconsidered the fishers' requests and concluded that exceptional circumstances exist to allow a re-examination of the income tax returns of the 752 affected fishers.
The CRA will now review the fishers' income tax returns for the 1999, 2000 and 2001 tax years on a case-by-case basis and this will start October 2011. The CRA will notify each fisher of its decision in due time.
Our government has the absolute expectation that the CRA administers Canadian tax law in a manner that is fair and consistent for all.