A COMPARATIVE HISTORY OF THE TAX COURT IN CANADA.

This article presents an overview of the history of tax dispute resolution in Canada. It traces the history of Canada’s system of tax dispute resolution through eight distinct phases from 1918 through to the present-day operation of the Tax Court of Canada. With this history outlined, Canada’s contemporary tax dispute resolution system is compared with the systems in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Singapore. This comparative analysis reveals that Canada is unique among its peers in its employment of a specialist judicial body to adjudicate tax appeals at first instance. The article concludes with some tentative normative reflections on Canada’s unique system of tax dispute resolution. Adopting Lon Fuller’s inner morality of law framework, the author suggests that the decision to dispose of tax appeals by way of a specialised judicial body may be problematic for the principles of generality, clarity, and congruence of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]