Wednesday, 2 June 2010

The H-Scary-T

Over the last few months people have been quietly freaking out about the upcoming change in Ontario to the HST sales tax system. I was never bothered by it. Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) is basically the Ontario Provincial Government combining the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) which confusingly they sometimes call RST which is 8% which the Federal Sales Tax, Goods and Services Tax (GST) of 5% into one 'tax' of 13%. If you look at the math, nothing really changes. There as some changes to what gets taxed and what doesn't. Some things that used to be exempt aren't anymore after July 1st when this comes into effect but the changes are slight. I am still not in the least bit worried about this whole HST thing, if anything I'm still a little bummed that sales tax was lowered from 15% to 13% - I prefer it to income tax since it is much more visible (less confusing and sneaky.)

2 comments:

J.Claire said...

You would be if you owned a home! The increase of tax when buying a home and the effect on has on sellers is significant... Can you tell I recently bought...

Rachael, Ministry of Revenue said...

Good post. And you’re right, the majority of taxation on goods and services will go unchanged.

If you want to see a list of what’s taxable and what’s not, it’s available at http://www.rev.gov.on.ca/en/taxchange/taxable.html or even available on your mobile device at http://www.rev.gov.on.ca/hstmobile/.