Cameco wins battle with taxman, CRA to refund company millions

A Saskatchewan mining company is finally seeing their efforts to fight the taxman payoff.

Cameco announced on Monday the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is refunding the uranium producer $300 million related to a long-standing tax dispute.

A news release from Cameco says CRA’s revised reassessments will result in the company being refunded $89 million in cash and $211 million in letters of credit, which was previously remitted to the Government of Canada based on prior reassessments issued by CRA for the 2007 through 2013 tax years.

A series of court decisions that were in Cameco’s favour for the 2003, 2005 and 2006 tax years determined that the income earned by Cameco’s foreign subsidiary from the sale of non-Canadian produced uranium was not taxable in Canada.

“While the pending return of $300 million in cash and security to Cameco is positive and certainly warranted, our broader tax dispute with CRA remains ongoing,” said Cameco in a news release.

“CRA continues to hold a further $480 million, consisting of $206 million in cash and $274 million in letters of credit, that Cameco has remitted or secured to date, tying up a significant portion of our financial capacity.”

Cameco is calling on the CRA to fully reverse the remining transfer pricing adjustments for these years and bring this matter to an end once and for all.