Acquiring business with a loss

It is a very good idea. Corporations often buy failed businesses for their past capital losses.

You should try to value properly this. You also need to remember that past capital losses can be used in the future to offset new capital gains, by yourself, if you don't sell it.

Corporations must satisfy certain conditions before buying another business with losses and use these non-capital losses for their own.

Here is the link to CRA site re: acquiring another corporation with losses.

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency ... 87.html#12

I strongly recommend your partner to talk to his accountant to make sure he can use the losses. If there's no benefit then I would agree to just wind it down. If there is a benefit, you and the partner should work out details of the sale because the business is worth something to your partner.

chowder wrote: ↑ What would a business with $5m in losses be worth to a purchaser that is confident the losses would satisfy the necessary CRA conditions?

If the tax rate is 20% and they can fully use the losses then the value to an acquiring company is around 20% of the losses. So the sale price should probably between 0 and that number. I would probably pay 25% of that number at most because there will be lots of tax/transaction/admin costs.

chowder wrote: ↑ so for 5m in losses, at most you'd pay 1.25m?

note: i think corp tax rate is 26%

How much the business is not worth is not solely based on the the amount of losses it has. You should ask these questions:

- Is the business active?
- Does the business have assets?
- What does the financial statement look like? What are the liabilities?
- Is the business still on-going even though it is losing money
- Is the $5 million in losses confirmed by CRA or based on some verbal interaction?
- Does the failed business, once assumed, interfere with your own business - if yes, agreement should have some clause limitations

You need to properly value the business (through a Certified Business Valuator) in order to assess the right price. Yes you will be paying a price for his/her services but at least you have an independent and trained valuator to help you determine a fair price. Then you can negotiate from there.

The losses are but one part of the equation. I strongly recommend you to hire an accountant/look for a CBV - especially with $5 million in losses.

Good luck.

I think you need to distinguish paper losses vs actual loss. Since there is a partner involved, how would the sale be transacted?

For $5M loss and potential for massive tax savings, you better talk to an accountant for some real advice based on relevant facts. There are surely many CRA rules that may prohibit what you are trying to do. I doubt you can successfully make a transaction solely for the sake of reducing tax. There is a general principal that business transactions be incurred with a view for profit.

The same way that you are willing to spend thousands to get an accountant to get this right, the CRA is likewise equally likely to invest resource to disallow your claim if 1.25M is on the line. Your question is too technical and the amount too large to rely on internet forum advice. I was half expecting you to say this is some small business, in which case I think a lot of people will tell you not to bother due to all the professional fees to make it happen.