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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site lsuc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!lsuc!dave
From: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman)
Newsgroups: net.taxes,net.singles,net.flame
Subject: Re: Marriage penalty
Message-ID: <428@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Feb-85 21:30:55 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.428
Posted: Mon Feb 18 21:30:55 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 18-Feb-85 22:29:02 EST
References: <285@calmasd.UUCP> <2297@mit-hermes.ARPA>
Reply-To: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman)
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 23
Summary: comment on transactions intended to reduce taxes

In article <2297@mit-hermes.ARPA> jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA (John Purbrick) writes:
||	The couple who got divorced each year ended up losing their case; there
||is a law that any transaction clearly intended primarily to reduce taxes is 
||necessarily invalid.

I'm not sure there's such a "law" (in the sense of a section of the
Internal Revenue Code); I believe it's a principle of interpretation
of the Code which the American courts use.

In Canada, by contrast, the technical wording of the statute
is what controls the law. A recent Supreme Court of Canada
decision upheld the principle that, within certain limits,
it's quite acceptable to take steps or enter into transactions
whose sole purpose is the minimization of tax.
(Of course, this is always subject to specific anti-avoidance
provisions, of which the Income Tax Act has many.)

Dave Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
Toronto
-- 
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