http://decisions.fca-caf.gc.ca/fca-caf/decisions/en/item/99321/index.do 
Piersanti v. Canada (October 28, 2014 – 2014 FCA 243) was a decision affirming the Tax Court in dismissing the taxpayer’s appeal. The taxpayer had alleged that the documents the Crown sought to introduce were obtained as part of a criminal investigation and should therefore be excluded. The Tax Court had applied the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision in Romanuk (blogged earlier on this site):
http://decisions.fca-caf.gc.ca/fca-caf/decisions/en/item/37789/index.do
which essentially held that the Jarvis rule did not operate to exclude the admission of evidence before the Tax Court:
[6] Here, the Judge was asking herself whether the appellant’s Charter rights were violated when the documents obtained through the requirements were later used to reassess the appellant’s income tax liability. The appellant opines that the Judge erred while framing that question. Rather, the violation occurred when the documents were seized without judicial authorization.
[7] In dismissing the appellant’s motion, the Judge relied on this Court’s recent decision in Romanuk v. The Queen, 2013 FCA 133, 455 N.R. 353 (leave to appeal to SCC refused, 35480 (November 21, 2013)) and held that the CRA could use documents obtained under its audit powers to further an administrative matter, such as a reassessment.
[8] Romanuk is dispositive of this ground of appeal. In Romanuk, Webb J.A. noted paragraph 103 of Jarvis and concluded that “…the results [of an audit] can be used in relation to an administrative matter, such as a reassessment”. This is what was done here. We have not been persuaded that Romanuk is distinguishable from the present matter.
What is very interesting however is that the Court of Appeal seems to soften the Romanuk decision somewhat leaving the door ajar for a possible Charter remedy in an appropriate case:
[9] The Judge did not err in law when concluding that the appellant’s rights under sections 7 and 8 of the Charter were not violated by the CRA when it used the information gathered in the course of the criminal investigation to reassess the appellant’s income tax liability for the years in question. The Judge’s legal finding accords with Jarvis and with the self-assessment and the self-reporting nature of the income tax regime. Whether the CRA could properly use such documents to prosecute the appellant for criminal offences under the ETA is irrelevant to the current civil proceedings. A found by the Judge, whether the appellant’s Charter rights were violated by using the information from the requirements to prosecute the appellant under the ETA was a question for the Ontario Superior Court of Justice where the criminal matter was heard and disposed of. In any event, even if the appellant was right in distinguishing between the civil audit and criminal investigation, we are all of the view that the facts of this case, which raise at best a technical breach, do not call for a remedy under subsection 24(2) of the Charter.
[Emphasis added]
The Court of Appeal did not accept the appellant’s attack on the Tax Court’s findings of fact:
[10] On the substance of the reassessments, the appellant mostly takes issue with the Judge’s findings of fact. More specifically, she argues that disbursements made by corporations she controlled should not be included in her income since they were repayments of a loan she had made to a family trust. The Judge did not believe the appellant and rejected this argument (see in particular paragraphs 46, 55, 57, 58, and 60 of the Judge’s reasons).
[11] The appellant has failed to show that the Judge committed any palpable and overriding error in her assessment of the evidence. In particular, having examined the record, we are all agreed that the Judge was entitled to conclude that the appellant had not made a personal loan to the family trust or to corporations under her control. As a result, there was no need for the Judge to intervene on the penalties.
As a result the appeal was dismissed with costs.