OTTAWA — Canadian truckers may once again be able to claim up to 80 percent of their on-road meals if a couple of trucking groups are able to bend Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s ear the right way.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance and independent driver group, the Owner-Operator’s Business Association of Canada, are teaming up with the Teamsters in a campaign calling upon Ottawa to restore 80 percent meal deduction for drivers on the job.

Compared to most Canadian workers and small businesses, truck drivers spend a significant amount of time away from home — eating at irregular times in truck stops and diners — says CTA. “What’s more, if they travel to the U.S. they can no longer try and save a few bucks by brown bagging it since US border authorities have clamped down on drivers who attempt to bring personal food items across the border.”

(Check out TodaysTrucking.com’s Special Report from Dec. 22 for more on the brown bag border shenanigans).

The groups — who launch their End Canada’s Lunch Bag Let-Down Campaign today — want Revenue Canada to put Canuck drivers back on the same footing as their American counterparts in terms of the allowable proportion of meal costs they can expense on their personal or small business tax forms.

Truckers were once allowed to deduct 80 percent of their
meals. CTA and OBAC wants to see it happen again

Canadian truckers were once allowed to deduct 80 percent of their meal costs. However, in an attempt to prevent businesses from getting a tax break on lavish meals consumed while entertaining clients, the Federal Liberals rolled the deduction limit back to 50 percent — a mark that hasn’t budged in over a decade.

South of the border though, Washington has gradually raised deductions over the last few years and the 80 percent limit will be fully restored in 2008.

The CTA and Teamsters insist truck drivers should not be lumped in with businesses where entertaining clients and “doing the lunch and dinner circuit is a part of the culture.” Instead, “meal costs are a reasonable expense incurred by Canadian truck drivers to earn a living.”

To try and get the finance minister’s attention as he prepares his 2007 budget, the three organizations — along with Today’s Trucking magazine (see upcoming Jan-Feb print issue and TodaysTrucking.com for more info) will make available a post card that truck drivers and fleet owners can send to the finance minister.

The post cards will be delivered to truck drivers in their pay envelopes, at truck stops, trade shows and the like.

“It’s time for the government of Canada to do the right thing and stop eating our drivers’ lunch,” says Joanne Ritchie, executive director of OBAC, who urges owner-operators to get behind the program.

Adds Phil Benson, a lobbyist for the Teamsters Canada: “When a U.S. and Canadian truck driver sit down side-by-side in the same truck stop, eating the same breakfast, it’s very hard to stomach the fact that one of them is getting an 80 percent write-off while the other gets only 50 percent; its not fair or reasonable.”

Meanwhile, some truckers are continuing the meal tax battle against Ottawa on another front. The Supreme Court of Canada will hear arguments from a group of 2,500 truckers and B.C. lawyer Tom Johnston who say the actual daily meal allowance a trucker can claim is far too low.

Johnston launched a class action suit against the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) at the B.C. Supreme Court in 2004. He argued that the shortfall between a federal bureaucrat’s $73 meal allowance and the $45 daily maximum meal claim (less 50%) allotted to a Canadian trucker under the Income Tax Act violates the equality sections of the charter.

He lost. But now he’s inviting truckers to jump on board a Supreme Court of Canada appeal.

The limit has been raised ever so slightly a handful of times in recent years. In 2001, Today’s Trucking first broke the story of Don Wilkinson — a Manitoba truck driver who challenged CRA in court, arguing the $33 a day allowed at the time wasn’t reasonable for his profession. A judge agreed, granting Wilkinson’s claim of $40 per day, and opening the door for similar individual challenges.

In 2003 CRA, the allowable flat rate to $45 a day.