Tax & Trade Blog

The concept of claiming input tax credits (“ITC”) for private businesses that provide both taxable and exempt services has recently been explored by the TCC (see for example: Sun Life (2015 TCC 37) and BC Ferry Services (2014 TCC 305)).  For real property, those businesses must determine the extent to which its property is used in making taxable or exempt supplies, and claim ITCs in line with that amount.  Although the same general principles apply with respect to public service bodies (“PSB”), PSBs can generally only claim ITCs in respect of real property where 50% or more of its property is used in making taxable supplies.  However, PSBs can make an election to have the same general proportional allocation rules apply.  In the recent decision of University of Calgary (2015 TCC 321) (with an identical decision reached in University of Alberta (2015 TCC 336)), the TCC considered PSBs that made such an election.