http://decision.tcc-cci.gc.ca/site/tcc-cci/decisions/en/item/63519/index.do 
Bui v. The Queen[1] (September 10, 2013) is a strange case involving a self-represented appellant claiming losses and tax credits in relation to the unadministered French estate of his father (of which he was one of 14 beneficiaries):
[1] There are appeals filed pursuant to the informal procedure from assessments and reassessments in which the Minister of National Revenue (the Minister) disallowed rental losses, capital losses and business losses, as well as the refundable tax credits for beneficiaries residing in Canada claimed by the appellant for the 2005 to 2008 taxation years. At the hearing, the respondent asked the Court to quash the appeals for the 2006 and 2007 taxation years on the ground that the assessments made for those years were “nil” assessments. The appellant agreed to this request and the appeals for those taxation years are quashed.
[2] The amounts reported as rental losses were $518,470 in 2005 and $4,695,984 in 2008. The capital loss reported for 2005 was $1,869,546. The amount of the business loss reported for 2005 was $50,446. Lastly, the appellant claimed a $6,110,851 refundable tax credit for beneficiaries residing in Canada for 2008.
Essentially the court rejected the appeal as having no factual basis since the appellant had no legal entitlement to income, losses or credits[2] from his father’s unadministered estate in France.[3]
Two interesting points emerge from the decision:
The first point dealt with the appellant’s argument that the case should be adjourned until the completion of the administration of his father’s estate:
[10] It is not appropriate, in my opinion, to wait for the liquidation of the estate to be completed or even for a final decision to be rendered by the French court with regard to the estate. First, the appellant did not prove the nature or content of any case brought by the appellant in France. Therefore, I am not able to assess its relevance. Second, Associate Chief Judge Bowman of this Court found, in
Kovarik v The Queen, 2001 CanLII 513 (TCC), 2001 2 CTC 2503 (at paragraph 22) that:
… This court’s function is to decide whether an assessment is right on the facts before it, not whether it might be changed as the result of a subsequent event such as a rectification order. If, every time a particular transaction had unexpected or unwanted tax consequences and the Minister assessed accordingly, this court on an appeal were to defer making a decision and grant a sort of stay of execution while the taxpayer sought a rectification order to reverse the adverse effects of the earlier transaction a goodly number of our cases would be hoist into judicial never-never land pending the disposition of the application by the provincial court. Acting as a form of judicial limbo is not part of this court’s mandate.
I agree. …
The second question dealt with the proof of foreign law and the presumption that foreign law is the same as Canadian law in the absence of evidence to the contrary:
… During cross‑examination, the appellant himself admitted that the estate had not yet been distributed. As such, in Ontario, the appellant did not have ownership of the property that was part of the estate. If the appellant wanted to show that French law granted him ownership of the property that was still part of his late father’s estate, he should have submitted evidence through an expert witness on French law in this regard. In the absence of such evidence, I must find that French law is the same as Canadian law on this matter. In
Backman v Canada, 2000 1 FC 555, at paragraph 38, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled on this issue as follows:
38 Where foreign law is relevant to a case, it is a question of fact which must be specifically pleaded and proved to the satisfaction of the Court. Professor J.-G. Castel has summarized the effect of the failure of a party to establish foreign law as a fact before the Court:
If foreign law is not pleaded and proved or is insufficiently proved, it is assumed to be the same as the lex fori. This seems to include statutes as well as the law established by judicial decision.
[11] The appellant did not show that he was entitled to receive income from the estate during the 2005 and 2008 taxation years either. If he was not entitled to this, he could not claim any loss related to this income.
While neither point is particularly novel it is interesting to see them reaffirmed in an income tax context.
In the result, the appeal was dismissed.
[1] 2013 TCC 326.
[2] No tax was paid in Canada by the estate so there was no basis for a claim for tax credits: paras. [20] to [21].
[3] There are a few factual aspects of the decision that add some complexity without, in my view, any additional substance. The reader is invited to review the decision for these points if he or she wishes.