Words and Phrases - "superannuation or pension benefit"
10 February 2004 Income Tax Severed Letter 2003-0052621A11 F - Régime de pension étranger
The resident taxpayer had participated in a French plan that was a compulsory social security scheme providing a retirement pension to self-employed persons based on the years of service. After finding that the amounts received were "superannuation or pension benefits" within the meaning discussed in Abrahamson, the Directorate went on to find that they were not exempted under Art. 18(1) of the France-Canada Convention, given that they did not satisfy the stated condition that they be paid in respect of past “employment,” a word whose meaning could be taken, in light of Art. 3(2) of that Convention, to be as defined in ITA s. 248(1).
Rasmussen v. The Queen, 2019 TCC 124 (Informal Procedure)
The taxpayer, an Australian police officer, who then became entitled at the beginning of 2013 to receive a periodic (i.e., every two weeks) payment from a “QSuper” government pension plan (to which both he and his employer had made regular contributions), as a result of his permanent disability immigrated to Canada later that year and became a Canadian resident. These “pension” payments were not taxable under Australian domestic law. In his Canadian return for 2015, he reported pension income of $60,963 and claimed a deduction for $60,963, which was denied by the Minister on the basis that the full amount was an amount received from a superannuation or pension fund or plan pursuant to s. 56(1)(a)(i).
In dismissing the taxpayer’s appeal, Favreau J stated (at paras 26, 28):
The Convention between Canada and Australia … does not prohibit the taxation of the pension benefits by Canada. …
[T]he amounts received by the Appellant from the QSuper were superannuation or pension benefits and that they had to be included in his income in accordance with subparagraph 56(1)(a)(i) of the Act regardless that he was unable to deduct the contributions to the QSuper when he made them.