OT- Contractor

[Christopher Browne]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 9:50 AM, Lennart Sorensen
<lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> That business would be expected to pay CRA $10K - $5K = $5K of GST.
>>
>> Historically, wholesalers and manufacturers have been reluctant to
>> sell to individuals, as this, in a PST-like tax regimen, draws them
>> into needing to figure out who's exempt and who's not.  They'd much
>> prefer, in that case, to avoid even needing to think about PST.  I'm
>> nearly certain that's why there used to be wholesalers that wouldn't
>> deal with individuals.  (And I think I only realized that fact just
>> now.)
>
> Well I know in Denmark they had a very simple way to deal with that.
> The sales tax was charged all the time, and businesses simply subtracted
> what they were charged in sales tax from what they had charged their
> customers and paid the difference.  No exception issues for anyone to
> worry about.  I hope the GST is handled more like that at least.

Unfortunately, not quite.  Every set of advocacy folks from every kind
of area emerged to protest that their area would be destroyed if GST
was applied, so, rather than it being a relatively simple tax, the
burden of exemption regulations is evidently larger than the
not-notably-simple Income Tax Act + ITARs.

Noise came from all directions, notably *every* business sector in
which GST would have been a new tax, as well as anti-poverty
advocates, playing morality cards.

> I think it would be more fair if given that the HST is adding PST to
> a number of items that previously did not have it, then they should
> remove PST from those items that are GST except (like used car sales).
> But no, they don't want to loose that income, so the PST gets to stick
> around for those.

Oh, you noticed that, did you :-).
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