Covid-19 Tax Relief Makes Winners out of Losses (for some)

The CARES Act, signed into law on March 27, 2020 in the wake of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, contained numerous changes to U.S. federal income tax law. One such change applied to the deductibility of net operating losses (“NOLs”). Legislation enacted in December 2017 commonly known as the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”...

COVID-19 Delays EIN Process for Canadian Applicants

Current closures at the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) have caused significant delays in obtaining an Employer Identification Number (“EIN”) for some U.S. businesses formed by Canadians, including new U.S. subsidiaries formed by Canadian companies. An EIN is a nine-digit number that the IRS assigns to businesses, which is necessary for many essential tasks, including making...

SEC Filing Deadlines for Canadian Issuers

During the current coronavirus crisis, the SEC has issued an Order providing filing extensions that apply to Canadian issuers. The following is a summary of the SEC’s new filing requirements. Form 40-F For Canadian issuers eligible to file their SEC annual report on Form 40-F under the Canada-U.S. Multi-jurisdictional Disclosure System (“MJDS”), Form 40-F continues...

Stranded Canadians Taxed in the Time of Covid-19

As Covid-19 continues to spread, many countries, including the United States and Canada, are increasingly closing their borders in an attempt to slow the rate of infection. This precaution may, however, have unintended tax consequences for Canadians who find themselves stranded on the U.S. side of the border for the duration of the shutdown. Under...

SEC Issues Guidance on COVID-19 Disclosures and Other Matters

On March 25, the SEC issued CF Disclosure Guidance Topic No. 9 that provides the Division of Corporation Finance’s current views regarding disclosure and other securities law obligations that companies should consider with respect to COVID-19 and related business and market disruptions. In the guidance, the SEC recognizes that it may be difficult to assess...

New SEC Proposed Amendments Seek to Improve and Harmonize Private Offering Exemptions

On March 4, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”) proposed amendments to the private offering exemptive framework under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”) to “simplify, harmonize, and improve certain aspects of the framework” with the goal of promoting capital formation while maintaining investor protections. The current private offering...

20-F and 40-F Filers Don’t Get Many of the Benefits of the Amended Accelerated Filer Definition

For Form 10-K filers, the SEC’s March 12 amendments to the “accelerated filer” definition made sense and helped better coordinate the “smaller reporting company” definition with the “accelerated filer” definition. The amendments would, in part, exclude from the definition of “accelerated filer” and “large accelerated filer” issuers that are eligible to be a smaller reporting...