It’s hard to overstate the power tax collectors wield over regular Canadians, especially business owners. Draconian tax assessments and outrageous and unreasonable behaviour can ruin lives. But now, those who have taken the brunt of that unfair treatment are fighting back to reinforce a fundamental legal principle to protect taxpayers.

Consider the recent story of two restaurateurs from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, who fought a $1-million tax assessment imposed by Revenu Québec after being wrongly accused of not levying sales taxes. The business owners won, with the assessment ultimately being reduced to zero. But the sobering saga took 15 years of their lives and cost them a whopping $350,000 in legal fees. In the end, the court refused to impose any punitive damages on the tax agency.

Or consider Irvin Leroux, who got hit with a surprise tax assessment of $728,000 on his RV park in Prince George, B.C, in 1999. The Canada Revenue Agency seized his financial records. When he asked for his records back to prove the auditors were wrong, the CRA said it had accidentally shredded them. Before he could have his day in court — supported by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation — the CRA issued a writ of seizure and sale on his property, leading his creditors to foreclose and sell it for less than half its value. CRA eventually admitted it was wrong and offered Leroux a refund of $24,000. He sued the CRA, but the court found there wasn’t enough evidence to back his claimed losses of $4 million.

The one silver lining that arose from the Leroux case was that for the first time a judge ruled the CRA owed Leroux a “duty of care.” Duty of care is a legal obligation requiring CRA agents to maintain a certain standard of care in the way they treat taxpayers. It also makes the CRA liable for damages if it fails to meet that basic standard.

Unfortunately for Canadian taxpayers, this obligation of duty of care is not firmly established, with several courts in different provinces interpreting the Leroux precedent in different ways. As things currently stand, the legal principle needs to be clarified.

Those two Quebec restaurateurs, Isabelle Desbiens and Gary Chionis, agree. That’s why they have asked the Supreme Court of Canada to hear their case and rule once and for all on the duty of care principle (and once again, the CTF is happy to be supporting their effort).

Their goal in applying to the Supreme Court is to establish, in the highest court in the land, that when representatives of a government agency take callous actions that ruin lives, there need to be real consequences.

If they eventually win their case, should the court agree to hear it, that would be a game-changer. Canadians would at long last have some comfort that the CRA needs to treat them with respect and care or risk being liable for damages. Canadians have long struggled to get even the most basic levels of service and far too often are given bad advice by CRA agents. It’s not unreasonable that the CRA be forced to pay for its own failures.

It’s well past time that taxpayers had some clear protection from overzealous CRA agents. Thanks to wronged business owners like Irvin Leroux, Isabelle Desbiens and Gary Chionis, there is a good chance they will finally get it.