The Tax Court of Canada recently decided that the 41.8 million dollars that Guy Laliberte of Cirque de Soleil paid to spend a week in space is a personal benefit. He was reimbursed by Cirque de Soleil under the assumption that the trip was a business trip. The rationale was the advertising benefit of live streaming from space was incurred to earn business income. Most of us don’t spend that much money on our trips, but it does point out CRA has the ability to look at the facts of a business trip and decide how much of the trip was actually business.
If your business pays for a trip, you should be ready to prove it was for business. Obviously you are keeping receipts and any material that proves business appointments. If CRA decides that your business trips were not really for business, you want to be ready to prove them wrong.
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