Starting July 1st we will be replacing the current GST with the government mandated HST for the following provinces at the following rates:
| Ontario: | 13% |
| British Columbia | 12% |
| Nova Scotia | 15% |
| Newfoundland | 13% |
| New Brunswick | 13% |
| Quebec | 12.875% |
The way our systems will calculate this is by looking at the value of the “province” field in the member account settings and using the corresponding tax rate.
Please note that the HST is “revenue neutral”, which means that even though it feels like you’re being gouged by an unaccountable government spending your money on idiotic things, you’re really not.
Don’t get me started….
The HST is *not* revenue neutral.
It could have been if they had lowered the provincial rate to account for the additional items that are now subject to the provincial taxation.
Instead we have short-term credits being handed out be our “generous” provincial government.
I know, I was being sarcastic. After all, if something is truly “revenue neutral”, then there’s no point even doing it.
Big online stores already took advantage of the new HST law! I personally encountered and described facts on the blog: Sears and Toysrus are cheating with HST
Indeed, I noticed I was charged HST on some work done at my house, this was prior to July 1st. Another contractor rounded their rates up from $18/hour including GST to $20 even, which basically adds another .56/hour in for themselves.
I hate crap like that.
Hey, Mark-
Please avoid using words like “tomorrow” and “next week” in item headers.
E.G. “HST Comes into effect tomorrow in Canada”.
As today is 2010-08-29, I initially took this to mean Aug 30th of this year.
As much as possible, tack on a hard date (preferably ISO8601 !) to relative dates like this!
I see this so often in websites and email – “Next week we will.. blah blah..” and sometimes there’s no date indicated.
Guess what happens when the above 5-year old phrase turns up in a google search item? Drives me crazy.
Good point Tony.