The HST Blog : Canada Harmonized Sales Tax Lawyer Cyndee Todgham Cherniak for Assessments, PST & RST Issues in Ontario, British Columbia & Quebec

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First, it is important to note that not all payments made by a limited partnership to the general partner are taxable from a goods and services tax (GST) / harmonized sales tax (HST) perspective.  The determination of whether GST/HST is payable/collectible can only be determined based on the facts. 

That being said, the belief that any and all payments from limited partnership to the general partner are outside the reach of GST/HST is incorrect.  The reason why it is important to consider the GST/HST status of such payments is that the general partner may be assessed by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) for failure to collect and remit GST/HST (or the limited partnership may be assessed by the CRA for failure to pay GST/HST) on certain amounts.  With the implementation of HST, the failure to consider the GST/HST status of payments increased from a 5% error in Ontario to a 13% error (from a 5% error in British Columbia to a 12% error and from a 13% error in Nova Scotia to a 15% error).

As discussed in my post on June 7, 2011 "Partners & Partnerships: Transfers Are Tricky", partners are required to charge, collect and remit GST/HST in respect of supplies of property or a service to the partnership otherwise than in the course of the partnership’s activities. Partners are not required to charge, collect and remit GST/HST in respect of supplies property or a service to the partnership that are provided in the in the course of the partnership’s activities.

The CRA takes the position that with respect to certain amounts of consideration paid by the limited partnership to the general partner, the general partner may be considered to provide property/services "otherwise than in the course of partnership activities".

The CRA also takes the position that the structuring of payments by the limited partnership to the general partner is important.  There are many payments/distributions/amounts of consideration that the CRA may look at in this context and it is beyond the scope of this blog article to address every one detail.  That being said, the CRA has seen structures whereby the general partner is paid amounts prior to the determination of profits and losses of the partnership and scrutinizes these payments.  The issue is whether any amount paid in such a manner is an expense for property provided or services rendered otherwise than in the course of partnership activities.

As discussed in my June 7, 2011 blog article, if a partner (in this context of this blog post, a general partner) performs a type of service in the marketplace or to more than one limited partnership/entity, the CRA may take the position that the services rendered otherwise than in the course of partnership activities.  For example, if a general partner provides management services to more than one entity, it may be considered to be a management services company and the amounts paid by the limited partnership to the general partner may be considered to be taxable.

General partners who did not seek GST/HST advice in connection with the structuring of the limited partnership may have missed this issue and should revisit the GST/HST status of the various payments of consideration.  This is especially important if the limited partnership/general partner operates in the financial services sector, health care sector, residential real estate sector or MUSH sector because it is less likely that the mistakes will be in the context of wash transactions (that is, there is an offsetting input tax credit to reduce the exposure).