Advocacy Work Continues on US Federal, State and Local, Canadian, and International Tax Issues.

• Author: Mata, Pilar
• Position: Tax Executives Institute

TEI's standing committees continue their excellent advocacy work across the globe. Copies of TEI's submissions can be found at www.tei.org/advocacy. To get involved in TEI's advocacy efforts, please reach out to our committee chairs or any member of TEI's legal staff.

Canadian Tax

LIAISON MEETINGS WITH CANADA REVENUE AGENCY AND DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE

On December 8-9, delegations of TEI's Canadian Income Tax Committee and Canadian Commodity Tax Committee members virtually participated in TEI's annual liaison meetings with representatives of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and Department of Finance. The 2020 meetings featured robust agendas covering a range of tax law, policy, and administration issues important to many TEI members.

This year's income tax agendas naturally focused on a number of issues related to the government's fiscal responses to the COVID-19 crisis, including the implementation of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit and the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS). The CRA meeting particularly addressed the government's initiative to reduce employers' income tax compliance and reporting burdens with respect to their employees who are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Finance meeting also featured an in-depth policy discussion of several TEI proposals for building on the tax measures that were included in the government's COVID-19 Economic Response Plan to restart the Canadian economy as it recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic. Other agenda items included the taxation of cross-border cash pooling arrangements, the prohibited investment rules for retirement compensation arrangements, and the (premature) collection of disputed tax amounts from large corporations, among many others.

This year's commodity tax agenda addressed issues related to CRA's handling of various items during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the use of electronic signatures, email communications, data transfers, credits and refunds, large case audits, and statutes of limitation. TEI's members also received an update from CRA regarding My Business Account initiatives and features, updates on CRA's appeals and objections status, and addressed questions regarding amalgamations, Section 167, purchase orders, wash transactions, the Beaudet case, and commodity tax filings. The Canadian Commodity Tax Committee discussed various legislative initiatives with the Department of Finance, including the recently issued Fall Economic...