A simple question lies behind Patrick de Kruyff’s Tax Court of Canada victory last month over the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA): Who on earth would suggest taking Toronto’s Don Valley Parkway at rush hour?
An auditor in Vancouver, that’s who.
The basic rule for the deduction is that the move has to cut at least 40 kilometres off the daily commute.
But for some reason Google Maps kept giving the CRA a much shorter route than it did de Kryuff, despite the fact they both punched in the same coordinates at the same time of day Monday to Friday — the heart of rush hour, 4:45 p.m.
And then de Kruyff found the flaw that led to a precedent-setting ruling that could pave the way for tax relief for other urban commuters: the CRA’s employee was in B.C. — getting Google Maps’s suggestions to navigate Toronto traffic at 4:45 p.m. Pacific time.
That’s 7:45 p.m. Eastern.
Ps: it was intentional (ie: not accidental) by the auditor.
The whole article is a tour de force and worth the read.
Vancouver person with two lane highway at home, weighing in on traffic in Toronto his hilarious
I think the part that really highlights the situation are these two parts: First, they used the same times, but different time zones; second, they used the excuse of CRA rules not taking current traffic into consideration. What this shows is that the CRA auditor made a mistake and rather than just admitting it, they doubled down and engaged in a years-long legal battle. After all, if time of day didn’t matter, why didn’t they just put in 2 AM as the time for the trip?