Law360 Canada ( June 1, 2021, 6:12 AM EDT) -- Appeal by the Crown from a Tax Court decision requiring the Crown to respond to undertakings made during the Crown’s discovery examination. CHR appealed reassessments denying certain carryover amounts for non-capital losses and scientific research and experimental development expenditures that had been incurred by another corporation. The Minister denied the amounts claimed based on the general anti-avoidance rule. The only issue in the appeal was whether the avoidance transaction was an abuse of the Income Tax Act. CHR sought production of correspondence between CRA officials and the Department of Finance to determine if such officials expressed an opinion on the rationale of the applicable provisions that was inconsistent with or conflicted with the current position of the Crown. The Crown indicated that none of the documents sought were considered in the reassessment at issue and thus determined that they were not relevant. The Tax Court judge determined that a permitted line of inquiry at the discovery stage included questions and requested documents to determine if the Minister’s pleaded policy for s. 245(4) purposes did not wholly conform with other administrative fiscal statements on the same subject. He thus allowed CHR’s motion and ordered the Crown to respond to the requested undertakings....