The long-awaited second edition of Income Tax Law is a comprehensive, up-to-date treatise on income tax law in Canada. The book introduces students and practitioners to income tax law in its broadest dimensions. It addresses the subject matter based on principles, policy, and practice. The objective is to explain what the law is and, more importantly, why it is the way it is, and how it works (or does not).

It examines the policy, structural, constitutional, and judicial framework of income tax law, addressing the following questions: who is taxable?; what is taxable?; how much tax is payable?; when is tax payable?; and how do we administer the system and resolve disputes with the tax collector? The book contains clear explanations of complex principles and formulae, a bibliography, a glossary, and appendices setting out tax rates and measurement of income.

Students of tax law will find this book indispensable. Legal practitioners in business law and litigators will also find it useful in drafting pleadings and assessing damages when considering tax issues in civil litigation. Finally, accountants, business executives, and other professionals will find the book helpful in navigating the murky waters of income tax.

The book includes, in an epilogue, an analysis of the December 2011 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Copthorne Holdings Ltd v Canada.

Vern Krishna, CM, QC, FRSC, FCGA, MCIArb, earned a B Comm (Manchester), MBA, LLB (Alberta), DCL (Cambridge) and LLM (Harvard). He is a professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. He is also of Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP and Executive Director of the Tax Research Centre at the University of Ottawa. Professor Krishna is a member of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He has been a Bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada since 1991 and served as its Treasurer from 2001–03. Professor Krishna is the author of The Fundamentals of Canadian Income Tax, now in its 9th edition, three volumes on general taxation, corporate taxation, and international taxation in Halsbury’s Laws of Canada, and the Editor of Canada’s Tax Treaties. He is listed in Who’s Who and Lexpert has recognized him in Best Lawyers in Canada in Trusts & Estates and Tax Law.

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