Google Maps data used to assess distances involving Newmarket, Mississauga residences
Canada’s Tax Court has allowed an appeal seeking an income tax deduction for the appellant’s expenses of relocating his residence from Newmarket to Mississauga to accommodate his new job in Toronto, upon considering Google Maps travel distance data.
In De Kruyff v. The King, 2025 TCC 116, the appellant worked in the financial services industry and originally resided at Fairway in Newmarket.
After getting a new investment management job in an office on Adelaide Street in the Greater Toronto Area, he moved to Kane Road in Mississauga in January 2020. For his new role, he spent nearly $130,000 in moving costs, which he wanted to deduct from his income tax liability for 2020.
The appellant and the minister of national revenue agreed that the distance between the GTA office and the new residence was 26 kilometres.
However, they disagreed on whether the travel distance difference between the old and new residences was 40 km or greater as required by the relevant threshold in the Income Tax Act, 1985. They used different shortest normal routes from the old residence to the office when obtaining travel distance data via Google Maps.
The appellant alleged that the reduction in the travel distance between the old and new residences amounted to 47.4 km, while the minister asserted that the correct figure was 32.8 km, which fell below the 40 km threshold. Thus, the minister argued that the relocation expenses were ineligible under the Income Tax Act.
Minister to reconsider
The Tax Court of Canada allowed the appeal regarding the relocation expense deduction for the 2020 taxation year, referred the matter to the minister for a reconsideration and reassessment, and awarded the appellant costs fixed at $1,000, plus disbursements.
The court ruled that the appellant incurred deductible expenses during an eligible relocation under the Income Tax Act.
The court held that the appellant met the 40 km threshold in the legislation because the average daily travel distance saved by the move between the shortest normal route from the old residence to the office and the new residence to the workplace was over 40 km.
The court noted that the shortest normal route remained unchanged and unmaligned as the applicable measure and test.
The court considered the technological changes relevant to this case and their wide acceptance to decide whether Google Maps data could exclusively inform the shortest normal route.
First, the court decided that the changing technology consisted of utilizing Google Maps in this context, with taxpayers and other daily commuters favouring this software over paper-based road maps.
Second, the court said the modern world’s commercial reality involved the ubiquitous use of GPS coordinates and digital mapping when driving in urban and suburban Canada, with software like Google Maps widely accepted and available as a data reservoir informing and calculating the shortest normal route.
Next, the court rejected the argument of the respondent’s counsel that allowing this appeal would risk resetting the litigation trap eliminated by Nagy v. HMQ, 2007 TCC 394, and Giannakopoulos v. MNR, 1995 CanLII 18985 (FCA), 1995 CarswellNat 415, [1995] 2 CTC 316.
The court said the risk would unlikely recur. The court noted that most people used Google Maps to choose the shortest normal route and that such use did not offend or cause “violence” to the Income Tax Act, the applicable test, or common sense.
The court added that ignoring the widespread use of the ubiquitous software would render the law obsolete, unreflective, and inaccurate.
“This more likely ‘traps’ the Court and the law in a time now past to which paper-based lawyers and judges nostalgically cling but from which the broader public has enthusiastically sprung by presently tapping smartphones in their hands and commanding the GPS in their cars,” wrote Justice Randall S. Bocock for the court.
