As the defendants' counsel said in submissions, the plaintiffs are not just trying to compare apples and bananas; they are seeking to compare apples and monkeys. The federal government, as an employer, enters into employment contracts with its employees. That one of the terms of its employment contracts relates to meal allowances does not entitle the plaintiffs, who are employed by other employers, to say that they are entitled in some way to a deduction for tax purposes equivalent to the federal government employment contract allowance. As Bowie J. said in Kasaboski v. R., 2005 TCC 356: Allowances paid to public servants are established as a term of their employment. They are not at all relevant to the matter before me...they certainly cannot establish an entitlement to a deduction from income not found in the Act.
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