Christian Lachapelle

[Lambkin]

http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1358991 ... -protester

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) reported today that tax fraud charges and charges under the Criminal Code were filed against Christian Lachapelle, a resident of Nicolet. He is alleged to have recruited 93 other individuals to avoid or try to avoid paying nearly $2 million in income tax. An arrest warrant has also been issued for Lachapelle in anticipation of his appearance before a Court of Quebec judge in Sherbrooke to answer to the charges filed against him.

The activities for which Christian Lachapelle has been charged are alleged to have occurred between June 2007 and February 2011 inclusively, and include allegations that he helped other individuals to evade or try to evade taxes as part of a tax protest scheme that made a distinction between a "natural" person and a "legal" person.

In 2012, this individual was sentenced to fines and a prison sentence for not filing income tax and benefit returns, despite a court order.

[Hilfskreuzer Möwe]

Thanks Lambkin!

So, we've finally found the identity of the promoter of the "run your Strawman as a business cost" scheme. With that name I found this decision:

• Robert v. The Queen, 2011 TCC 166: http://canlii.ca/t/flgx6

where Christian Lachapelle is explicitly identified as the agent representing Richard Robert, contracted privately to the corporation RICHARD ROBERT. Not a clever move.

Not sure how we missed the Robert decision, burnaby49. This has all the classic hallmarks.

SMS Möwe

[Burnaby49]

Well that's embarrassing, a human being/natural person/corporate person tax case and I missed it. My only excuse is that the decision came out in March 2011 and I didn't start posting on Quatloos until November 2011 when I started this discussion;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=7827

I'd been lurking for years but without any inclination to participate. There was almost no Canadian content at that time and I considered Quatloos to be restricted to American issues. However the Chandler Turnnir case was so bizzare that I had to put it up. Things expanded from there and Canadian content went up exponentially once Mowe started posting.

So I may have read the Roberts case as part of my general review of all Canadian tax cases but, since I wasn't yet posting, I just let it go. I actually do read all, or almost all, Canadian tax related court decisions on a daily basis to get material for a specialized technical tax publication I've been writing for years. I subscribe to this service;

http://www.castore.ca/product/knotia-fe ... x-news/161

For $215 a year I get hours of weekly entertainment. We all have our own idea of fun.

[grixit]

It's certainly cheaper than cable.

Hmm... Real Sovereigns of Saskatoon. This episode, the neighborhood gets a surprise visit from Guru Christian Lachapelle!

[Burnaby49]

Christian Lachapelle gets four years. A hefty sentence for tax evasion in Canada;

http://thinkpol.ca/2015/11/27/natural-p ... in-prison/

This is the only reported judgment that I could find that involves Lachapelle;

Robert v. The Queen, 2011 TCC 166
http://canlii.ca/t/flgx6

but the 2012 sentence mentioned in the news story is referenced in another Quebec OPCA case (R. c. Normandin, 2014 QCCQ 13167). At para 90 it mentioned Lachapelle as a comparator:

[90] Lachapelle in the decision (R. c.Christian Lachapelle, 450-73-000839-112, 11 December 2012), the judge sentenced an individual to a sentence of 30 days incarceration for not filing a tax return on time. At the hearing, the accused refuses to be judged and to recognize its administrative duties, given that it is not part of our community, claiming to be Mi'kmaq descent.

Oddly there don't seem to be any Tax Court or Federal Court files on Lachapelle.

I don't think Lachapelle is a Poriskyite - the scheme reported in Robert v The Queen is different from Russ's natural person variant. Instead, it closes matches these three cases:

Atutornu v The Queen, 2014 TCC 174
http://canlii.ca/t/g77fl

We've mentioned Rasper Atutornu's case here;
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10041&p=171868

Girard c La Reine, 2014 CCI 107
http://canlii.ca/t/g6jzt

Goyette c Agence du revenu du Québec, 2013 QCCQ 1629
http://canlii.ca/t/g2scz

Or maybe he started as a Poriskyite and then evolved his more complex business expense scheme?