Best Newsletter Article by a Young Practitioner Award

Newsletter articles, in addition to being a valuable service to the profession in their own right, are often a stepping-stone to lengthier pieces of writing, such as contributions to CTF conferences and articles in the Canadian Tax Journal. Early success in writing newsletter articles as a young practitioner (YP)—by the CTF definition, an individual who has worked in the taxation field for 10 years or less—may lead to a career in tax in which writing is a regular and continuing part of one’s contribution to the profession.

The Canadian Tax Foundation has chosen to encourage the writing of newsletter articles by YPs by creating the “Best Newsletter Article by a Young Practitioner Award”.  The award is to be given for the best newsletter article which (a) appeared in any of the 3 CTF newsletters in a calendar year, and (b) was written solely by one or more authors who was a YP at the time of publication. The first award is for the year 2014, and was presented at the Board of Governors Mentorship Dinner Gala in Montreal on November 21, 2015, immediately preceding the 67th Annual Tax Conference.

The process of award selection began in fall 2015 with identifying the eligible articles. This research showed that a surprisingly large number of 2014 newsletter articles were written by YPs and are thus eligible for the award –  45 (100% of all articles) from Canadian Tax Focus (which publishes only articles for which at least one of the co-authors is a YP), 8 (6% of all articles) from  Canadian Tax Highlights, and 8 (32% of all articles) from Tax for the Owner-Manager. In all, 61 articles by 62 authors

A total of 24 of these articles were reviewed by a 6-member committee, consisting of YPs and recent YP graduates who have been intimately involved with CTF newsletters. The criteria applied by the committee were essentially the same as those used for the CTF’s Douglas J. Sherbaniuk Distinguished Writing Award. The members of the committee were:

• Chrystelle Chevalier-Gagnon, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg, Montreal
• Timothy Fitzsimmons, Dentons Canada LLP, Toronto
• Sean Glover, Cox and Palmer LLP, Halifax
• Trevor Goetz, Grant Thornton LLP, Vancouver
• Adam Power, Ernst & Young LLP, Calgary
• Pooja Samtani, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, Toronto

The committee gave the 2014 award to 3 authors in respect of the following articles:

• Chris Watt Bickley (Deloitte LLP, Ottawa: cwattbickley@deloitte.ca), “US Taxpayers and Canadian Mutual Funds: Reducing the Tax Risk” (2014) vol. 4, no. 1 Canadian Tax Focus, 2.
• H. Michael Dolson (Felesky Flynn LLP, Edmonton: mdolson@felesky.com), "Stop PSB Proliferation" (2014) vol. 22, no. 9 Canadian Tax Highlights, 1-3.
• Lauchlin H. MacEachern (Moodys Gartner Tax Law LLP, Calgary: lmaceachern@moodysgartner.com), "Ten-Year Limitation Period for Tax Debts Arising Prior to 2004" (2014) vol. 14, no. 3 Tax for the Owner-Manager, 8-9.

The CTF also granted honourable mentions to 3 authors in respect of the following  articles:

• Craig A. Dale (Grant Thornton LLP, Vancouver: Craig.Dale@ca.gt.com), "Acquisition of a CCPC by a Public Company: Dividend-Planning Issues" (2014) vol. 4, no. 1 Canadian Tax Focus, 10-11.
• Marie-Eve Gosselin (Thorsteinssons LLP, Toronto: megosselin@thor.ca), "TCC Shuts Down Strategy To Multiply Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption" (2014) vol. 14, no. 3 Tax for the Owner-Manager, 4-5.
• Max Reed (White and Case LLP, New York at the time of writing; now with SKL Tax, Vancouver: max@skltax.com), "TFSA: US Tax Classification" (2014) vol. 22, no. 7 Canadian Tax Highlights, 5-6.

Young practitioners interested in writing for the Foundation newsletters are invited to contact the newsletter editors: Alan Macnaughton (amacnaug@uwaterloo.ca) for Canadian Tax Focus, Vivien Morgan (vmorgan@ctf.ca) for Canadian Tax Highlights, and Thomas McDonnell (1tmcdonnell2@rogers.com) for Tax for the Owner-Manager. 

Individuals interested in participating in any of the events and activities of the Young Practitioners chapters of the CTF across Canada are invited to contact the chair of the steering committee or Robyn Corrigan (rcorrigan@ctf.ca) of the CTF national office. In Québec they are invited to contact Sonia Gobeil (sgobeil@ctf.ca) of the CTF’s Quebec Office.