Law360 Canada (December 15, 2020, 6:21 AM EST) -- Appeal by Yellow Point from a Tax Court decision confirming its 2014 assessment denying an ecological gift deduction claimed by the appellant. In 2008 the appellant, a corporation owning lands in their natural state, gifted lands to The Land Conservancy of British Columbia (TLC) and Nanaimo & Area Land Trust Society (NALT). The interests in the lands were transferred to TLC and NALT in 2008. At the end of its 2008 taxation year, the appellant did not have the documents establishing that an ecological gift had been made for purposes of s. 110.1(1)(d) of the Income Tax Act and did not claim the tax relief associated with the gift in its 2008 tax return. During its 2009 taxation year, the appellant received the fair market value certificate and the certification that the gifted land was ecologically sensitive. The appellant later received tax receipts from TLC and NALT. In 2010, the appellant provided these documents to the Minister and requested that its 2008 taxation year be reassessed to recognize its ecological gift and claimed a capital gains exemption in relation to the gifted property. The Minister reassessed the appellant’s 2008 taxation year. The appellant subsequently claimed yearly deductions with respect to the gifted property for its 2009 through 2013 taxation years respectively. The Minister disallowed the ecological gift deduction for 2014 on the basis that the five-year carry forward period available for the claimed deduction expired in 2013. The appellant argued that s. 110.1(1)(d) introduced into the Act a novel concept of a gift which did not materialize until all the requirements for claiming the tax relief associated with the gift were met, in this instance, 2009. The Tax Court judge held according to the wording of s. 110.1(1)(d), the gift was made when the appellant granted the covenant to TLC and NALT in 2008 and that the other requirements set out in s. 110.1(1)(d) for claiming the tax relief were not part of the determination of when a gift was made. The appellant argued that a purposive analysis of s. 110.1(1)(d) showed that the gift was not made until the subsequent year when the required certificates and the appropriate receipts were filed with the Minister....