The tax treatment of amounts paid out of failed Ponzi schemes is once again in the news. In Roszko v. The Queen (2014 TCC 59), the Tax Court of Canada allowed the taxpayer's appeal and held that amounts paid out of a fraudulent scheme were not taxable as interest income.
Roszko follows two recent decision on this issue. In Johnson v. The Queen (2012 FCA 253), the Federal Court of Appeal held that amounts paid out of a Ponzi scheme in excess of the duped taxpayer's original investment were taxable as income. And in Orman v. Marnat (2012 ONSC 549), the Ontario Superior Court of Justice held that amounts received out of a Ponzi scheme were not investment income (see also this article on the court's consideration of whether it could rectify certain corporate documents of two companies that had invested in the fraud).
In Roszko, the taxpayer was induced to invest in TransCap Corporation, which was allegedly trading commodities, on the basis that the investment would return 18% to 22% annually. In 2006, the taxpayer made an initial investment of $100,000, which was structured as a loan. In 2006 and 2007, the taxpayer loaned a total of $800,000 to TransCap. From 2006 to 2009, TransCap paid to the taxpayer a total of $408,000 as follows: $22,500 in 2006, $81,000 in 2007, $156,000 in 2008, and $148,500 in 2009.
In December 2009, the taxpayer became suspicious of the activities of TransCap, which lead to an investigation by the Alberta Securities Commission, which eventually determined that TransCap had perpetrated a fraud on investors.
The issue before the Tax Court was whether the $156,000 received by the taxpayer in 2008 was interest income under paragraph 12(1)(c) of the Income Tax Act.
The Tax Court cited the Federal Court of Appeal's decision in Johnson for the proposition that there can indeed be a source of income in a Ponzi scheme. However, the Tax Court held that the facts in the Johnson case – wherein the Federal Court of Appeal held that the $1.3 million received by the taxpayer out of the Ponzi scheme was taxable – were different from the facts of the present case. Specifically, in Roszko, the taxpayer's agreement with TransCap stipulated how the funds were to be invested, the taxpayer was lead to believe the funds would be so invested, the funds were not invested in that manner (i.e., the taxpayer's contractual rights were not respected), it was agreed that TransCap perpetrated a fraud, and the fraud was described in a decision of the Alberta Securities Commission.
The Tax Court held that the facts of Roszko were more like those in the case of Hammill v. The Queen, in which the Federal Court of Appeal held that a fraudulent scheme from beginning to end cannot give rise to a source of income from the victim's point of view and hence cannot be considered as a business under any definition.
The Tax Court noted that, in Roszko, the Crown had argued that the income was property income in the form of interest. However, the Tax Court held the amount received by the taxpayer was not income from property, but rather a return of capital to the extent of the original amounts invested. The Tax Court noted that excess returns might be considered income. The Tax Court allowed the appeal .
This is a victory for the taxpayer for the 2008 tax year, but the unanswered question that looms in the background is how the taxpayer's overall loss ($392,000) on the Ponzi scheme investment will be treated for tax purposes.
For more information, visit our Canadian Tax Litigation blog at www.canadiantaxlitigation.com
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