What are the meanings of assessment, reassessment and confirmation?

Second, while it is true that assessment, reassessment and confirmation refer to three specific actions by the Minister under the Act in the process of determining the tax liability of a taxpayer, the word “assessment” also refers to the product of that process. Hugessen J.A. nicely described the two meanings of the word in Canada v. Consumers’ Gas Co. [1987] 2 F.C. 60 (F.C.A.). At page 67 he wrote: What is put in issue on an appeal to the courts under the Income Tax Act is the Minister’s assessment. While the word “assessment” can bear two constructions, as being either the process by which tax is assessed or the product of that assessment, it seems to me clear, from a reading of sections 152 to 177 of the Income Tax Act, that the word is there employed in the second sense only. This conclusion flows in particular from subsection 165(1) and from the well established principle that a taxpayer can neither object to nor appeal from a nil assessment.