A securitization trust (“CFI”) used a concurrent lease structure under which it became the concurrent (head) lessee of automobiles from automobile dealer and sublessor of the automobiles to the dealership customers, and financed the automobile dealers by prepaying rents under the head leases. Before finding that CFI had satisfied the documentary requirements for claiming ITCs for the HST on the rent prepayments, and in rejecting the Crown position that various CFI spreadsheets did not satisfy its alleged requirement that “a supporting document … must originate from or be signed by the [supplier]” (para. 30), Hogan J stated (at paras. 38, 40 and 48):
[T]he broad term “form” was used in subsection 169(4) of the Act and section 2 of the Regulations because Parliament was mindful of the benefits of paperless record keeping. …
[I]nformation stored on a registrant’s computer server qualifies as supporting documentation. …
[T]he Regulations do not set out a general requirement for the supporting documentation to be issued or signed by the supplier. The definition of “supporting documentation” only requires the document to be issued or signed by the supplier where the documentation does not fit within one of the document types outlined in paragraphs (a) to (g) [of the “includes” definition of “supporting documentation”] or fall within the meaning of “form” as set out in the preamble to the definition.