2023 Fall Economic Statement: New GST/HST Joint Venture Election

On November 21, 2023, the Government of Canada released its Fall Economic Statement ("2023 FES") which includes certain sales and excise tax measures, including draft legislative proposals to implement long-awaited new GST/HST joint venture election rules. The Government first mentioned its intention to update the joint venture election rules in the 2014 Canadian federal budget ("2014 Budget") and has reiterated that commitment in several subsequent budgets.

As discussed below, the draft legislative proposals indicate that the Government intends to implement a new broad "commercial" joint venture election (the "Commercial JV Election") in parallel to the existing election covering limited joint venture structures. In other words, once the legislative proposals have been enacted, it would still be possible to elect under the existing rules as long as the legal requirements are still met.