David Jacyk

• Van Lee v HMQ, 2018 TCC 230 – The CRA treated the creation of a trust as a form of tax avoidance and attributed the income tax liability of the spousal trust to the settlor of the trust, on the basis that the trust was not validly constituted under Quebec law, or was otherwise a sham. The CRA’s aggressive assessing position represented an attempt to test the law and expand the legal grounds for ignoring trusts for tax purposes, by attempting to build on principles expressed in recent case law relating to sham and tax avoidance. David was successful in having the assessment completely vacated, establishing that the trust was validly constituted under Quebec law and that neither the trust nor the initial transfers of property to the trust constituted shams.

• Daishowa‑Marubeni International Ltd. v. Canada, [2013] 2 SCR 336, 2013 SCC 29  – a forestry tax case concerning  reforestation and remediation  liabilities that David argued as lead counsel at the Tax Court, Federal Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court case involved interveners from the forestry and oil and gas industries;

• Haida Nation v. Canada (Fisheries and Oceans) 2015 FC 290 – an injunction and judicial review in respect of the opening of a fishery by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans near a national marine reserve;

• Century Services v AG of Canada, 2010 SCC 60, [2010] 3 S.C.R. 379 /  Re Ted LeRoy Trucking Ltd, 2009 BCCA 205, [2009] G.S.T.C. 79 – a precedent setting insolvency case concerning the priority of GST, this was one of the first cases in the Supreme Court of Canada that involved the interpretation of key provisions of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act;

• Weyerhaeuser Company Limited v Her Majesty the Queen, 2012 TCC 106 – a tax appeal involving overlapping  federal and provincial tax legislation and the adversarial intervention of a provincial government;

• Her Majesty The Queen Right of Canada v. Domtar Inc. & Domtar Industries Inc., 2009 FCA 218  – a civil action involving a constitutional challenge to federal legislation implementing the Canada-U.S. Softwood Lumber Agreement;

• MIL (Investments) S.A. v Her Majesty the Queen, 2007 FCA 236, 2007 D.T.C. 5437, [2007] 4 C.T.C. 235 – the first “tax treaty shopping” test case in Canada;

• Leroux v. Canada Revenue Agency, 2012 BCCA 63  – a precedent setting lawsuit for regulatory negligence against the Canada Revenue Agency;

• Stanley J. Tessmer Law Corporation v HMQ, 2013 TCC 27  – a constitutional challenge to the application of the Goods and Services tax to criminal defence legal bills;

• Amateur Youth Soccer Assn. v. Canada (Revenue Agency), 2007 SCC 42, [2007] 3 S.C.R. 217, 2007 D.T.C. 5527, [2008] 1 C.T.C. 32, 367 N.R. 264, 287 D.L.R. (4th) 4  – a case concerning the requirements for establishing charitable status under the Income Tax Act;

• Her Majesty The Queen v. Roitman, 2006 FCA 266, (2006) 353 N.R. 75, 2006 D.T.C. 6514; [2006] 5 C.T.C. 142 leave to appeal refused [2006] S.C.C.A. No. 353  – a proposed class action case launched in the Federal Court of Canada, the decision has been cited widely as a precedent on  the issue of the Tax Court’s jurisdiction and the threshold for striking pleadings;

• B.C. (A.G.) v Christie, [2007] 1 SCR 873, 2007 SCC  – a constitutional challenge to the application of the B.C. Social Service Tax Act to legal services, involving several provincial governments and interest groups as interveners;

• R & R Trading Co Ltd. v M.N.R., 2006 F.C. 901, [2006] F.C.J. No.1138 (2006) 149 A.C.W.S. (3d) 1016 -a customs trial involving the imposition of anti-dumping duties and penalties on imports from Korea;

Other recent successes for clients

• Secured a consent to judgment to vacate an income tax assessment in full in a tax appeal involving tens of millions of dollars of tax liability, shortly after filing the Tax Court appeal and prior to any discovery process.
• Defended a claim set for a commercial arbitration relating to the exercise of a mining option arising from mining property in Mexico, leading to a successful resolution.
• Successfully negotiated  a recovery for a substantial portion of the client’s legal bills on an indemnity basis after having the tax assessment vacated in Tax Court.