Adrienne Woodyard

Adrienne’s practice is primarily focused on tax dispute resolution/litigation. She advocates on behalf of taxpayers in disputes with the Canada Revenue Agency and the Ontario Ministry of Finance, and, where disputes cannot be resolved at the administrative level, she represents them in the Tax Court of Canada and the Federal Court of Appeal. Adrienne also advises clients regularly on a wide variety of tax compliance issues and represents clients who wish to participate in the CRA’s Voluntary Disclosures Program, an amnesty program designed to allow taxpayers to correct errors or omissions in their past tax returns, as well as clients seeking a waiver or reduction from penalty and interest under the CRA’s Taxpayer Relief program. She has extensive knowledge of income tax, payroll, GST/HST, retail sales tax and excise tax matters, and her clients include multinational corporations, privately held and owner-operated enterprises, estates and trusts, entrepreneurs, executives, not-for-profit corporations and registered charities.

Adrienne currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Advocates’ Society, as well as the editorial board of the Tax Litigation Journal (Federated Press). She has been quoted and has written extensively on various tax matters, including best practices for retention of tax-related business records and managing CRA audits, transfer pricing reviews, tax issues relevant to cross-border employee travel, offshore tax evasion, CRA challenges to charitable donation programs and the tax treatment of damage awards.

Adrienne obtained her law degree from Queen’s University, where she received the McDougall-Watson Memorial Award for her work with the Queen’s Legal Aid Society and was an editor of the Queen’s Law Review. She was called to the Ontario bar in 2000. Prior to attending Queen’s, Adrienne studied English and Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, and was awarded the Lieutenant Governor’s Academic Medal for achieving the highest average in her graduating class.