SpenceDrake Tax Law

About SpenceDrake Tax Law

SpenceDrake Tax Law is a Toronto firm focused on tax law, representing individuals and businesses in disputes with the Canada Revenue Agency and provincial tax authorities. The team's combined experience runs past twenty years, and the firm handles CRA audits, notices of objection, voluntary disclosures, and appeals before the Tax Court of Canada and the Federal Court of Appeal, along with SR&ED credit disputes and related business and corporate law matters. The firm takes on clients from across Canada out of its single office in downtown Toronto.

Senior tax lawyer Cris Best holds a Juris Doctor and a Masters in Tax Law from Osgoode Hall Law School, a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Simon Fraser University, and the CPA Canada In-Depth Tax Program certificate. Before turning to law, Cris Best worked as a software developer and systems analyst, and grew up in Newfoundland. Cris Best previously directed objections and appeals at one of Canada's largest independent SR&ED consulting firms and co-founded another SR&ED firm as legal counsel, and was one of the lawyers who assisted Irvin Leroux, pro bono, in a case seeking to hold the CRA to a duty of care toward taxpayers.

The firm's associates include Daniyal Ahmad, a Queen's University law graduate who articled at SpenceDrake after studying individual, corporate, and international taxation in law school, and Caroline McPhail, a University of Toronto law graduate who also holds a Masters of Museum Studies from the University of Leicester and articled at another Toronto tax law firm before joining SpenceDrake.