http://decision.tcc-cci.gc.ca/tcc-cci/decisions/en/item/143956/index.do
Ahmad v. The Queen (May 3, 2016 – 2016 TCC 113, Boyle J.).
Précis: Ms. Ahmad was claiming a tax credit that required that she be in full-time attendance at the University of Florida. The University advised CRA that she was a part-time student. She worked a full time job 37.5 hours per week. Justice Boyle could not conclude that she was a full-time student and dismissed the appeal. There was no award of costs as this was an informal procedure.
Decision: The case turned entirely upon the facts:
[5] She indicated that her best estimate was that she spent two or three hours in total at her courses and course work and studies and readings, five work days a week. So about 10 to 15 hours a week, or perhaps 12 and a half hours a week, was her best estimate throughout the year.
[6] The syllabus hours for the three courses, one taken each semester, show that the hours equivalency guidelines, as she described them, for instruction learning activities (excluding the parenthetical individual study hours) would have ranged between about five or six hours per week in the first semester and nine and a quarter hours, at best, on a liberal interpretation for the second and third semesters.
[7] The first semester would have approximately doubled if one were to include the individual study hours shown in the parentheticals. I do not think those individual study hours are the equivalent of instruction learning activities time spent, but rather reflect additional student work outside of instructional hours in a normal university setting.
[8] I cannot find that this is full-time and for that reason, I have to dismiss the appeal. The law does not give me any other choice.
There was no award of costs as this was an informal procedure.