Revenue Quebec Assessments and back taxes
My self and my wife are partners of a small business. We have been assessed for taxes of about $140,000 each. These are GST, PST payments and some DAS payments that we could not keep up with for the past few years. with penalty and interests added. We own a house worth 200,000 and have a mortgage of 100,000.00 and Revenue Quebec has placed a lien on it. We dont own a car but have a car leased by the company. Our company Bank account and personel accounts has been seized. We dont have any RRSP or savings. We registererd a Corporation and are living on the little money we earn from it. Can they seize the corporation bank account that me and my wife are 50%, 50% share holders. Will bankruptsy solve our problems? Please advice
The first thing to note is Canada Revenue Agency is not a normal creditor and has many abilities that other creditors do not have. To answer your question, yes CRA can seize the corporation bank account as many of the outstanding amounts you identified (i.e. GST and PST) are debts the corporation is fully responsible for.
The other thing I must stress is the importance of meeting with a local trustee right away. While I don’t know what the size of the lein on the home is, this is a charge that can’t be released by a proposal or a bankruptcy, but the filing of a proposal or a bankruptcy will limit their ability to increase the size of the lien or add any additional liens to the property. As a result any delay on your part could drastically reduce the equity in your home (as the statutory lien placed by CRA essentially becomes like a second mortgage).
Other than this the situation you have outlined is quite complicated and raises a number of issues that we don’t have sufficient information to answer in this type of a forum. Based on your description the best thing for you to do is to contact a trustee’s office, schedule a meeting and get professional advice immediately before things deteriorate further.