The James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series
presents
Benjamin Alarie
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
Policy Preferences and Expertise in Canadian Tax Adjudication
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
Both taxpayers and governments struggle to stay on top of the various complex sources of tax law and to apply them in a myriad of different contexts. Given the potential for confusion and disagreement (not to mention the sometimes very large financial stakes involved) it would make sense to have a process for taxpayers to appeal government decisions to an expert body that can provide authoritative, reasoned and rational solutions to tax disputes. For this reason Canada, like the United States, has a specialized tax court dedicated to hearing appeals from decisions of the tax administration. Yet there is some evidence in both Canada and the US that judges in tax cases may be influenced by their own personal policy preferences or other factors extraneous to the “true” legal merits in deciding appeals from decisions of the tax administration. This paper examines in more detail appeals from tax assessments in Canada to understand the relative influence of judicial tax expertise and the policy preferences of judges on appeals to the Tax Court of Canada and the Federal Court of Appeal. Part II describes the institutions and processes for tax appeals. Part III analyzes the impact of judicial expertise and policy preferences on outcomes of tax appeals. It uses 4,231 decisions of the Federal Tax Court of Canada between 2000--‐2006 including the related appeals to the Federal Court of Canada and the Supreme Court of Canada. Part IV discusses our three main results: (1) policy preferences of judges matter, but not that much; (2) resources matter — a lot; and (3) there are dynamics relating to affirmation of appeals by the Federal Court of Appeal that are difficult to explain, although a desire to avoid the apprehension of bias is possible.
Benjamin Alarie, M.A. (Toronto), J.D. (Toronto), LL.M. (Yale), is a professor and Associate Dean, First Year Program at the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto. He researches and teaches principally in taxation law and judicial decision-making. Before joining the Faculty in 2004, Professor Alarie was a law clerk for Madam Justice Louise Arbour at the Supreme Court of Canada. Professor Alarie convenes the James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop at the law school and is currently serving as President of the Canadian Law and Economics Association. His publications have appeared in numerous academic journals, including the American Business Law Journal, the British Tax Review, the Canadian Business Law Journal, the Canadian Tax Journal, the Osgoode Hall Law Journal and the University of Toronto Law Journal. His research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. He is coauthor of several editions of Canadian Income Tax Law (LexisNexis) and was awarded the Alan Mewett QC Prize for Excellence by the JD class of 2009.
A light lunch will be served.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.
