999 Gold Depot: one requirement to pay, and the business stopped

999 Gold Depot (Canada) Limited buys scrap precious metals — gold, silver, platinum, palladium, dental and other scrap — has them refined by third-party refiners in Canada and the United States, and sells the refined bullion to investors and jewellers.

It does this from approximately 780 square feet: a customer area, two customer booths, a melt room with two induction furnaces and two x-ray assay machines, secure storage, scales and computers, per First Report of the Proposal Trustee, May 25, 2026, s. 2.0, paras. 1–2.

Its six-week cash flow forecast has receipts of $4.57 million and rent of $9,000.

The refund that became an assessment

The company's model produces a structural GST/HST position that is worth understanding, because everything else follows from it.

It pays GST/HST on its purchases of scrap precious metals, and it sells refined investment-grade gold on sales that are frequently zero-rated or exempt. Tax in, no tax out. The result, as the trustee puts it, is that the business "historically generated recurring GST/HST refunds", per First Report, May 25, 2026, s. 2.0, para. 3.

That is not a loophole; it is how the Excise Tax Act treats precious metals, and it is why a refiner or dealer in this trade is permanently in a refund position. It also makes the input tax credit the entire economics of the business.

On March 2, 2023, the CRA issued an assessment for GST/HST reporting periods from April 1, 2013 to August 31, 2019, disallowing input tax credits totalling $15,695,124 and assessing further penalties and interest under section 285 of the Excise Tax Act — the provision that provides for penalties where a person knowingly, or in circumstances amounting to gross negligence, makes a false statement or omission, per First Report, May 25, 2026, s. 3.0, para. 1.

The company has contested it throughout. A notice of objection on May 10, 2023. The CRA confirmed the assessment by letter of May 13, 2024. A notice of appeal to the Tax Court of Canada dated February 9, 2026, which remains outstanding, per First Report, May 25, 2026, s. 3.0, para. 2.

Nothing has been decided. The assessment is under appeal, and the report contains no finding against anyone.

Collection does not wait for the appeal

What it does contain is the sequence that closed the shop.

Alongside the assessment the CRA undertook a series of enforcement measures, including successive Requirements to Pay, and by letter dated October 23, 2025 asserted that the company owed $31,807,933 — roughly double the disallowed credits, the difference being penalties and interest.

Then, on April 22, 2026, the CRA issued a Requirement to Pay to the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, where the company maintained its sole operating bank account.

As a result of the April RTP, the Company lost access to its operating funds, which materially disrupted its ability to continue ordinary-course operations, and precipitated the NOI filing.

Per First Report, May 25, 2026, s. 3.0, paras. 3–4.

This is the part practitioners advising a taxpayer under GST/HST assessment should sit with. A requirement to pay is served on the third party holding the money. It requires no court order, no judgment, and no notice period to the taxpayer. It is effective on service. And a live Tax Court appeal does not, of itself, stop collection of a GST/HST assessment the way it does for most income tax.

So a business with an appeal pending, an objection filed, and no adjudicated liability lost the use of its bank account on a letter.

The notice of intention followed on April 30, 2026, with KSV Restructuring Inc. as proposal trustee, per Certificate for the Notice of Intention, April 30, 2026, and notice went to creditors on May 4, per NOI Notice to Creditors, May 4, 2026.

What the stay actually did

The next section of the report is one of the cleanest illustrations available of what an automatic stay buys, and how fast.

Counsel to the company engaged with the Department of Justice and the CRA about the withdrawal of the April RTP. The CRA subsequently confirmed that the April RTP had been cancelled effective May 4, 2026 — four days after the filing. Following further discussions with CIBC, the company regained access to its operating account and resumed ordinary-course operations, per First Report, May 25, 2026, s. 4.0, paras. 1–3.

Two weeks of no bank account, resolved by a filing that costs a fraction of what litigating the garnishment would have.

The trustee's characterisation of what the company is now doing is worth quoting in full, because it does not pretend the problem has gone away:

Such operations, however, are being conducted under the specter of a claim from the CRA exceeding $32 million, which is stayed by the filing of the NOI.

A stay suspends enforcement. It does not resolve the assessment, and it does not run forever.

The shape of the business, in six lines

The cash flow forecast for May 29 to July 14 is a good portrait of a metals dealer, per First Report, May 25, 2026, s. 5.0, para. 2:

Cash falls from an opening $950,000 to a closing $627,000.

Materials are 98.5% of receipts. This is a spread business: the company buys metal, refines it and sells it, and what it keeps is the margin between the scrap price it pays and the bullion price it realises, less a payroll of $60,000 and rent of $9,000 over six weeks.

Two things follow. First, working capital is everything — a business turning over $4.5 million of metal in six weeks cannot operate for a day without a bank account, which is why the April RTP was immediately fatal rather than merely painful. Second, the $200,000 of professional fees in the period is more than three times the payroll. The restructuring is, for now, the largest discretionary cost the business carries.

The trustee's view is that the company is expected to have sufficient liquidity to continue operating through the extension, while noting the forecast rests on management's assumptions, per First Report, May 25, 2026, s. 5.0, paras. 3–4.

What the extension is for

The company sought to extend the filing deadline from May 30 to July 14, 2026 — forty-five days, the maximum a single order may grant under s. 50.4(9), per First Report, May 25, 2026, s. 7.0, paras. 1–2.

The trustee supported it on the statutory grounds, and identified what the time is actually for: to continue discussions with stakeholders and evaluate restructuring alternatives, **including whether restructuring efforts should continue under the BIA, where a viable proposal may be made to creditors, or continue pursuant to proceedings under the *Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act***.

That choice is the real question in this file, and it is driven by the tax appeal rather than by the trade. A proposal has to be voted on and has to offer creditors something; a CCAA proceeding can hold a stay in place for as long as a court will extend it. When the single dominant creditor is a disputed assessment that a court in a different building will decide, the restructuring statute is being chosen for how long it can wait.

One further detail from the supporting evidence. The affidavit was sworn by Erol Aksu, who deposes that he was a director of the company until March 5, 2023 and is currently employed by it — three days after the assessment issued, per First Report, May 25, 2026, Appendix "A", Affidavit of Erol Aksu sworn May 25, 2026, para. 1.

The report offers no explanation for the timing and draws no conclusion from it, and neither do we — the record establishes a date and nothing more.

It is worth saying why the date appears at all. A director's personal liability for a corporation's unremitted net tax under the Excise Tax Act attaches to the period during which they served, and resigning does not shed it; what resignation starts is a two-year limitation on assessing the former director. So in any insolvency driven by a GST/HST assessment, when someone ceased to be a director is a fact the file will eventually need, whatever the reason for it was.