Voyageur 170
Tavares Puts CRA on the Stand, and Inflation Hits the Ceiling.
News for residents of the “11th province”: Canadians abroad.
Please don’t forget to share, subscribe or send feedback.
Tavares Puts CRA on the Stand
John Tavares is heading to Tax Court over an $8 million fight with the CRA, and the whole thing turns on a question many Canadians abroad know too well. Where were you really resident when the money landed?
The Maple Leafs captain signed a seven-year, $77 million U.S. contract in 2018 with a $15.25 million U.S. signing bonus paid in the first year. Tavares says the payment was an inducement under the Canada-U.S. tax treaty, which would cap Canadian tax at 15 percent. The CRA says he was already a Canadian resident, or that the bonus was ordinary employment income, which points to a much bigger bill.
The hockey numbers are cartoon-sized, but the bones of the dispute are pretty common. Residency date(s). Treaty wordings. Sources of income. What a contract says versus what tax authorities think it means (or want it to mean). You don’t need a slapshot to recognize how that works.
Read more: Financial Post / Blaney McMurtry
Advertisement:
A photo from the old country:
Inflation Hits the Ceiling
Canada's inflation rate climbed back to 3 percent in July, right at the top of the Bank of Canada's target band. Statistics Canada says gasoline did most of the pushing, as pump prices have moved up 25.7 percent from where they were a year earlier.
If you strip out gas and inflation, the number held at 2.2 percent for the third month in a row, which is less dramatic but the number Canadian-rate watchers will be pondering at least until the next Bank of Canada decision. Food bought from stores softened nicely to 3.1 percent from 3.9 percent in June, so the grocery aisle behaved slightly better. We’ll accept any and all small mercies.
The travel line is where Voyageur readers might want to raise an eyebrow. Higher jet fuel costs helped pushed airfares up 12 percent, as travel tour prices also jumped. For Canadians pricing trips home, renewing a mortgage, living on Canadian pensions or moving money back and forth, July's report is not so much a headline as a story to watch play out with a spreadsheet open to evaluate where things are likely to go next.
Read more: Statistics Canada / iPolitics