From: AlanBaggett@volcanomail.com   
      
   Canada Revenue Agency seeks back taxes from aboriginal employees :CRA SOTW   
      
   The Canada Revenue Agency has been aggressively collecting back taxes from a   
   group of mostly low-income aboriginal women who worked for Native Leasing   
   Services   
      
   Hamilton Spectator    
   By Joanna Smith    
      
   OTTAWA The Canada Revenue Agency has been aggressively collecting back taxes   
   from a group of mostly low-income aboriginal women who lost a long-running   
   legal battle to be exempt from paying personal income taxes because their   
   employer was situated on a    
   reserve.    
      
   Native Leasing Services, an employee outsourcing company that has its   
   headquarters on Six Nations of the Grand River, a reserve near Brantford,   
   Ont., is seeking a remission order from National Revenue Minister Diane   
   Lebouthillier -- who would have to    
   recommend it to cabinet for approval -- on behalf of 3,916 former employees.    
      
   "Most of the applicants live on or near the poverty line ... A large portion   
   of these employees will never be able to pay the tax assessments that have   
   been made against them," Jim Fyshe, a lawyer working pro-bono for Native   
   Leasing Services, wrote in    
   the application for a remission order filed in June 2013.    
      
   The employees, whose annual income at Native Leasing Services averaged about   
   $27,000, according to Fyshe, are being pursued by collections officers who are   
   putting liens on their homes, garnishing their wages and clawing back benefits   
   for years of    
   personal income taxes after the courts supported a decision by Canada Revenue   
   Agency to reinterpret the Indian Act.    
      
   One of them is Ramona Dunn, 53, who the Canada Revenue Agency says owes nearly   
   $94,000 in taxes, fines and interest for the five years she worked as a   
   registered nurse and diabetes educator at Anishnawbe Health Toronto, where she   
   was technically an    
   employee of Native Leasing Services.    
      
   Dunn, who grew up in poverty -- at one point living in a shack behind a gas   
   station with her mother, a residential school survivor -- said she took the   
   job at the non-profit agency for a smaller salary than she would have earned   
   at a hospital.    
      
   "I was willing to work for less money than my skill set would have given for   
   me just for the chance of working in my community and helping my people," Dunn   
   says from her home in Exeter, Ont., adding the tax exemption, which she still   
   believes she has a    
   right to as a status Indian, helped make up some of the difference in   
   take-home pay.    
      
   Now Dunn, whose severe arthritis prevents her from working full time, has   
   remortgaged her home and the Canada Revenue Agency threatens to put a lien on   
   her property.    
      
   "Never in a million years would I have thought they would go after me," says   
   Dunn, who has started an online petition and wrote a letter to Lebouthillier   
   about her case, receiving a pro-forma response on Nov. 24 assuring her   
   officials would review her    
   issues.    
      
   Philippe Brideau, a spokesman for the Canada Revenue Agency, said they could   
   not comment on individual cases due to privacy reasons, but said remission   
   orders are considered on a case-by-case basis.    
      
   "Each request is carefully reviewed by the CRA to determine if the collection   
   of a tax or enforcement of a penalty is unreasonable or unjust or if it is in   
   the public interest to grant remission," wrote Brideau, who did not make   
   Lebouthillier available    
   for an interview.    
      
   "The filing of a request for remission does not create a suspension of   
   collection action for a tax debt. The CRA makes every effort to reach a   
   mutually acceptable payment arrangement based on the taxpayer's ability to pay   
   before proceeding with any    
   collection actions," Brideau wrote.    
      
   Native Leasing Services, part of the O.I. Group of companies, was set up in   
   the 1980s by First Nations activist Roger Obonsawin and his partner, Ljuba   
   Irwin, as a way for First Nations people and non-profit organizations serving   
   the aboriginal population    
   to exercise their right to be exempt from income taxes under section 87 of the   
   Indian Act.    
      
   Native Leasing Services would hire the workers as a centralized agency --   
   taking care of payroll and other administrative tasks -- but the work would   
   actually be done for the clients based off-reserve.    
      
   The Canada Revenue Agency later changed its guidelines and entered into an   
   agreement with Native Leasing Services to clarify them through a series of   
   test cases in court.    
      
   Irwin says Native Leasing Services was under the impression that should they   
   lose what ended up being a long and protracted legal battle, the past debts   
   would be forgiven.    
   That ended up not being the case.    
      
      
   *January 25, 1983 -- Nowegijick v. The Queen    
      
   The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Eugene Nowegijick, a member of Gull Bay   
   Indian Band in northwestern Ontario, has the right as a status Indian to be   
   exempt from paying taxes on his personal income under section 87 of the Indian   
   Act because his    
   employer, the Gull Bay Development Corp., was situated on the reserve, even   
   though he performed *his duties as a logger off the reserve.    
      
      
   *1987 -- Native Leasing Services    
      
   Roger Obonsawin and Ljuba Irwin create O.I. Employees Leasing Inc. -- Native   
   Leasing Services and set up its head office on the Six Nations of the Grand   
   River, a reserve near Brantford, Ont. This allows its employees, who work   
   mainly at aboriginal non-   
   profit organizations off reserves, to be exempt from paying income taxes.    
      
      
   *April 16, 1992 -- Williams v. Canada    
      
   The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Glen Williams, a member of the   
   Penticton Indian Band, did not need to pay taxes on his employment insurance   
   benefits for work done on a reserve even though the benefits themselves did   
   not come from the reserve. The    
   court established "connecting factors" to define eligibility for tax exemption   
   under section 87 of the Indian Act.    
      
      
   *Political protests    
      
   The Canada Revenue Agency, then known as Revenue Canada, interpreted the   
   ruling to mean employees of Native Leasing Services, working off-reserve, must   
   pay income taxes. These new guidelines would come into effect Jan. 1, 1995,   
   which set off a political    
   battle -- especially as then prime minister Jean Chrétien broke a promise he   
   made while in opposition the year before -- culminating with Obonsawin and   
   other indigenous activists occupying fifth floor of a Revenue Canada building   
   in downtown Toronto in    
   December 1994.    
      
      
   *December 23, 1994 -- A compromise    
      
      
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