Cris Best

First Year of Call

Areas of Practice
Taxation

Description
Cris Best has been practicing Tax Law for over 10 years. He has a Juris Doctor (JD) and Masters in Tax Law (LLM) from Osgoode Hall Law School. He also completed Parts I & II of the Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA) of Canada In-Depth Tax Program.

Cris has practiced tax law his entire career, starting with a tax law firm his second year of law school. He finished all but one of the available Tax Law courses while completing his Juris Doctor at Osgoode Hall Law School.

Cris has appeared before the Tax Court of Canada, Federal Court of Appeal and provincial courts. He lead the legal practice for multiple tax firms including as Director of Objections & Appeals at Canada’s largest independent Scientific Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax consulting firm. He then co-founded and served as Legal Counsel for a SR&ED tax consulting firm.

Cris believes in ensuring taxpayers are treated according to the government’s published standards including CRA’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Accordingly, he was one of the lawyers who assisted Mr. Irvin Leroux pro-bono in his struggle to hold CRA to a duty of care obligation to taxpayers.

He completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science at Simon Fraser University, receiving multiple scholarships for high academic achievement.

Prior to his legal career Cris was a Software Developer & Systems Analyst for a large multi-national corporation.

Cris was born and raised in Newfoundland.