The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The SJHL still is looking for assistance in its battle with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. Until that help arrives Ð if it ever does Ð the league will play by rules that it previously didn't know existed. "I guess we have no choice," Melville Millionaires president Ernie Iluk said Monday. "We have to comply with what (the CCRA's) request is." "If nothing comes down the pipe, (the teams) would have to make deductions on any expense payments they make," added SJHL president Laury Ryan. "We would have to do it. It just doesn't make sense to get into any more trouble." The SJHL was rocked by a CCRA ruling that sought to collect unpaid unemployment insurance and Canada Pension Plan premiums from the teams. The government agency wanted the clubs to consider its players as employees, who then would be taxed on the monthly allowances and benefits they receive Ð including the monthly stipends paid to the players' billets. The CCRA audited the majority of the SJHL's teams and sent them assessments ranging from $5,400 to $14,000. The league's teams are planning to make the necessary deductions from now on, but there still could be a change in that plan. There are rumblings that Hockey Canada is pushing for a basic exemption on expenses of up to $750 per player per month. It's unlikely that any player in the SJHL receives or has received that much money per month Ð and yet they've been taxed on the payments. "But who knows when Hockey Canada is going to be able to come up with some sort of agreement?" Iluk said while suggesting the Millionaires will hereafter make the deductions. "They've been talking about it for well over a year and we haven't heard anything yet." Ryan is convinced something will be done very soon. "We'll have to do some hoop-jumping," said Ryan, who has yet to discuss the situation at length with Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson. "I'm sure there will be some sort of agreement where we're allowed to pay a player's expenses in excess of what we're doing now and not be charged for it. "The strange thing is, we're going to court for less money than we're going to be allowed in the future. "This whole thing doesn't make any sense at all. It has been a frustrating experience for all of us." The SJHL appealed the CCRA's original ruling, but the agency denied the appeal. Now the league's management committee has suggested to the board of governors that the matter should be appealed to the Tax Court of Canada. "The good thing is we're out of the bureaucracy," Ryan said. "The people who ruled on the appeal (to the CCRA) are the people who make the rules. "That's the good news. The bad news is you don't hear a lot of stories about people winning (appeals to the Tax Court) and the government giving them their money back." Ryan, who claimed his meeting Monday with Liberal MP and federal cabinet minister Ralph Goodale was cancelled after the league announced its plans to go to court, said the league will foot the bill for the appeal. Ryan said that could be between $14,000 and $18,000.
