Canada vs Univar Holdco, October 2017, Federal Court of Appeal, Case No 2017 FCA 207

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Category: General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR), Tax Avoidance Schemes | Tag: , , ,
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In the case of Univar Holdco the Canadian tax authorities had applied Canadian Anti-Avoidance Rules to a serie of transactions undertaken by the Univar Group following the acquisition of the group’s Dutch parent. The (only) purpose of these transactions was to increase the amount of retained earnings that could be taken out of Canada without incurring withholding tax.

The Federal Court of Appeal overturned the prior decision of the Tax Court and came to the conclusion that it had not been proved that the transactions were abusive tax avoidance – abuse of the Act.

The Court also noted that subsequent amendments and commentary to the Act do not confirm that transactions caught by the subsequent amendments are abusive before the amendments are enacted.

The 2017 decision of the Federal Court of Appeal

The 2016 decision of the Tax Court

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