Calgary Alberta - That's one heck of a workload.
 
Federal The court has to examine 140 years of tax records of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) over the company's claim it's exempt from paying income tax, according to Blacklock's Reporter.
 
Justice Alan Diner says expert testimony will have to suffice given there are no witnesses left from the time of the original contract.
 
"This particularly holds true in this case where there are no fact witnesses to events that occurred nearly a century and a half ago," Diner wrote.
 
CP claims the 1881 Canadian Pacific Railway Act had subsidies and land grants in order to complete a transcontinental line.
 
The act included terms of an 1880 contract stating the railway "shall be forever free from taxation by the Dominion," and the law was never repealed.
 
For the last eight years, railway lawyers have been in Federal Court arguing the validity of the act.
 
They claim CP, which reported $2.4 billion net income in 2019 and paid $706 million in income tax, does not have to pay fuel, carbon, or corporate taxes.
 
In 1990, the Canada Revenue Agency agreed to refund a portion of the railway's fuel taxes but a 2005 dispute over the company's claim for more refunds lead to the lawsuit.
 
"The underlying litigation dates back to the formation of Canada," wrote Diner.
 
The Federal Court noted Sir Charles Tupper, then-Minister of Railways and Canals, signed the 1880 contract 36 years before income tax was introduced by Parliament.
 
Author unknown.