Thousands of New Housing Rebates and New Residential Rental Property Rebates are denied annually for various reasons that may or may not be correct. However, in this particular case the rebate was correctly denied and the appellant did himself no favours in attempting to explain why the assumptions made by the auditor were not correct. One particular assumption did double duty in establishing the unlikelihood that the appellant could afford the mortgage costs, while also giving him the opportunity to reduce his credibility to near zero:

• The Appellant would not have been able to afford the annual mortgage payment of $20,820 on a reported income of less than $15,000 in 2010;

• In response to that concern, the Appellant explained that his actual 2010 income exceeded the amount of income reported for that year as he did not disclose his cash income on that return. The Court was not reassured by this explanation. On the contrary, it only diminished the Appellant’s credibility;

This is a case that never should have even gone to appeals, much less tax court. The appellant would have been well advised to just repay what he was never entitled to and at least attempt to not get it on the public record that he doesn’t report all his income for tax purposes.