On April 22, 2008, the important decision of Prevost was released by the Tax Court of Canada. The facts in Prevost were quite straightforward:

Yes! It’s over! As a tax practitioner, many people who talk to me during April will often comment that I must be very busy since this is “harvest season”. While there’s no doubt that many tax practioners are often busy in April, Moodys’ practice does not focus on personal tax preparation.

Much of our firm’s day-to-day tax planning and research involves issues surrounding the purchase and sale of businesses. Such purchase and sales will often involve the acquisition and/or granting of a restrictive covenant. In many cases, the granting of the restrictive covenant could be as simple as the vendor agreeing not to compete with the purchaser’s business for a limited period of time in a specified geographical area.

As mentioned in the first blog entry of February 29, 2008, the February 26, 2008 Federal Budget introduced the TFSA. The new TFSAs appear to be similarly modeled after “Roth IRAs” that exist in the US. On the surface, the introduction of this vehicle does not appear to be all that earth shattering. However, upon a closer look, some significant planning may be able to be done.

Well, welcome to the first edition of Moodys LLP Tax Advisors blog entries. We hope this entry is the first of many where many difficult tax issues are translated into plain English and any breaking news is quickly released onto the blog. Accordingly, we encourage you to come back and visit us often.