Szymczyk: CRA Reneges On Long-Standing Assessing Agreement

Szymczk v. The Queen (2014 TCC 380) is a recent decision from the Tax Court of Canada that addressed whether the taxpayer, Mr. Richard Szymczk, correctly reported standby charge and operating expense benefits in his 2008 and 2009 taxation years as an employee of General Motors of Canada Ltd. ("GM"). The issue at the heart of the decision was whether the CRA could renege on a long-standing agreement it had with GM that allowed it to use a simplified method to compute standby charge and operating expense benefits of its employees.

The taxpayer argued that the CRA was estopped from assessing him contrary to that agreement. The Tax Court did not agree.

GM's Agreement with the CRA

For more than 28 years, the CRA had allowed GM to report its standby charge and operating expense benefit for employees using a simplified, averaging method rather than computing the benefit separately for each individual employee. The CRA issued the administrative authorization (the