Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[alwaysfishn]

HOT OFF THE PRESS!!!!

 

It'll make more sense if you post a link!

[Novabonker]

glowbull tv- It seems that the government is breaking elections BC rules by not having some form of intervener status. It can lead to criminal charges, but that's nothing new for the Liberals.   The snowball keeps growing!


and I'll even give a tip on the next scandal - who paid for Olympic accommodations for the Libs......  I have some inside knowledge from my work on this one and it's going to be messy..... When you put your hands in the cookie jar, make sure you wash your hands and wipe for prints . Seems that building a house of cards won't work in a windstorm.

Here's the first of many more issues around this to come. Had enough corruption yet?

http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/04/19/MinisterHotelTab/


UPDATES -
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/04/19/bc-government-hst-pamphlets-illegal.html

According to Elections BC: "An individual or organization who wishes to oppose an initiative petition and intends to incur expenses in their opposition campaign must apply to register as either an opponent or as an initiative advertising sponsor."


There were no opponents registered to the HST initiative campaign by the March 8 deadline, according to Elections BC.
 Now there's a way to save us some money....

[alwaysfishn]

Some clarification notes on HST.

1. You may have heard “The HST adds $2,100 to your yearly costs”
a. You would need to spend an additional $30,000 on currently PST-exempt items to reach $2,100
b. For a Family of 4 with a $60,000 annual income the true impact is $8.91 per month.
c. A Senior Couple with a $30,000 income will be impacted by an additional $1 per year.
d. A Family of 4 with a $90,000 income will be impacted by an additional $14.83 per month.
e. A Family of 4 with a $30,000 income will actually benefit by $44.58 per month (because of the BC HST Credit)

2. You may have heard “Everything will cost more”
The vast majority of retail items will see no tax change with HST
Items on which you pay PST and GST today stay exactly the same. (7%PST + 5%GST = 12% HST)
a. New cars, trucks, boats, recreational vehicles
b. Furniture
c. Electronics
d. Kitchenware
e. Toiletries
f. Hardware and tools
g. Adults clothing
h. Pet Food

3. You may have heard “Housing will cost more”
a. No HST on used homes which make up 80% of total sales in BC
b. HST rebate will apply on new homes up to $525,000 – maximum $26,250
c. Homes above $525,000 are eligible for a rebate of $26,250
d. In BC - 73% of home sales are under $500,000
e. In Northern BC 99% of home sell for less than $500,000

4. You may have heard “You’ll pay more for car insurance, home insurance…”
The HST won’t change the price of any of those items. They are exempt.

5. You may have heard “Staying warm and keeping the lights on will cost more”
Home heating fuels and residential electricity are eligible for a point-of-sale rebate, including:
a. Oil
b. Natural gas
c. Propane
d. Wood and wood pellets
HST won’t increase the cost of heating or powering your home

6. You may have heard “It will cost more to feed my family”
These are ALL zero rated –
a. basic groceries such as milk, bread, and vegetables.
b. agricultural products such as grain, raw wool, and dried tobacco leaves.
c. most farm livestock.
d. most fishery products such as fish for human consumption.
e. prescription drugs and drug-dispensing fees (in case you buy these at the grocery pharmacy).
The general rule of thumb is – if there is currently GST on any item at the grocery store then HST will apply.

7. You may have heard “The disabled will be impacted by additional cost for medical devices”
These Medical devices are zero-rated:
(a) hearing aids
(b) heart-monitoring devices
(c) hospital beds
(d) breathing apparatus
(e) asthmatic devices
(f) prescription eyeglasses/contact lenses
(g) artificial eyes
(h) artificial teeth such as dentures, crowns and bridges, orthodontic appliances
(i) aids to locomotion such as a chair, commode chair, walker, wheelchair lift or other aid to locomotion for use by an individual with a disability
(j) patient lifters
(k) wheelchair ramp; portable wheelchair ramp
(l) modifying motor vehicles to adapt the vehicle for the transportation of an individual using a wheelchair
(m) prescription orthotic and orthopedic devices
(n) prosthesis/devices
(o) canes or crutches
(p) articles for blind individuals
(q) guide dogs for blind individuals and hearing ear dogs
(r) supplies and services related to medical and assistive devices.

8. You may have heard “Children’s clothes and items will increase”
Children’s clothing and items below will not be subject to the provincial portion (7%) of the HST or HST exempt
(a) Children's clothing designed for babies, girls, and boys up to and including girls' Canada Standard Size 16 and boys' Canada Standard Size 20, or clothing designated for girls and boys in sizes small, medium or large if the clothing does not have a designated Canada Standard Size would be eligible for point-of-sale rebate. This would not include costumes or clothing like sports protective equipment.
(b) Children’s footwear designed for babies, girls, and boys up to and including girls' size 6 and boys' size 6, including footwear without a numerical size that is designated for girls or boys in sizes small, medium or large would be eligible for point-of-sale rebate. This would not include skates, rollerblades, ski-boots, footwear that has cleats, or similar footwear.
(c) Diapers, including cloth and disposable diapers designed for babies and children, and diaper inserts and liners, rubber pants, and training pants would be eligible for point-of-sale rebate. Incontinence products would be zero-rated under HST, in accordance with current GST rules.
(d) Children's car seats and car booster seats that are restraint systems or booster cushions that conform with Transport Canada's safety requirements for Standards 213, 213.1, 213.2 and 213.5, as described under the federal Motor Vehicle Safety Act would be eligible for point-of-sale rebate.

9. You may have heard "Education costs are going to increase including my child’s music lessons”
Educational services such as courses supplied by a vocational school leading to a certificate or a diploma which allows the practice of a trade or a vocation, or tutoring services made to an individual in a course that follows a curriculum designated by a school authority; music lessons are not taxable.

10. You may have heard “HST will hurt small business”
HST will be good for business. It will replace hidden sale tax and small businesses will get additional tax cuts. Currently, PST is applied at every step in the creation of a product. Those multiple PST charges are embedded in the price you pay at the store – even though you can't see it. And of course, you pay PST on the final purchase price. Under the HST system, most of those embedded costs are removed and savings can be passed on to the consumer.

[CameronT120]

Item 10 alone should make people sit up and take notice.  Sadly, people are too wrapped up in politics rather than economics and are blind to the reality that this tax makes sense.

As an aside, alwaysfishn, you might want to edit item 10 to make it easier to read.  The code is making it cumbersome.

[alwaysfishn]

HST critics need to take a closer look at crumbling PST‏

A column from today’s VancouverSun by SFU professor Jon Kesselman on the advantages of the Harmonized Sales Tax, as well as a link to his full report in the BC Business Council publication Policy Perspectives
http://www.bcbc.com/Documents/ppv17n2.pdf

Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Page A02
By Jon Kesselman

Four out of five British Columbians in a recent survey expressed a willingness to sign the petition to repeal the harmonized sales tax. Many groups and opposition parties have cited deficiencies of the impending sales tax reform. But in failing to propose any alternative to the HST, they have accepted the notion that British Columbia's existing retail sales tax is a relatively desirable tax.

After all their publicly bandied criticism of the HST -- much of it misinformed and misconceived -- opponents of this tax reform need to justify retention of the PST. It's time for the public spotlight to be turned from the HST to the PST. In fact, B.C.'s PST is seriously flawed and economically damaging, and whatever its potential shortcomings, the HST will be superior in almost every respect.

A common adage is that "an old tax is a good tax." B.C.'s PST is not only an old tax but an antiquated and outmoded tax. The format is used in only five Canadian provinces (just three after Ontario and B.C. replace their sales taxes mid-year) and 45 of the 50 U.S. states. Almost every other country has long since abandoned retail sales taxes and adopted a value-added tax format like Canada's GST.

Moreover, no country besides Canada simultaneously employs two such divergent forms of sales tax at the national and sub-national levels. Retention of the PST in B.C. would leave the province's businesses with an unnecessary $150 million of tax compliance costs each year, which push up product prices for all consumers. Retaining the PST would also leave the provincial government burdened with annual costs of $30 million for administration plus $50 million for vendor compensation.

These operational costs will be eliminated with the move to an HST, thus helping to preserve public services and/or resist pressures for tax hikes. In addition, repealing the HST would deprive the B.C. treasury of $1.6 billion in federal transfers made to facilitate harmonization. Opponents of the HST have not told us how they would make up those lost revenues: raise taxes (and which ones) or cut public spending (and on which services)?

Even worse than these financial impacts of repealing the HST, keeping the PST would continue to act as a drag on B.C. economic prosperity. B.C. has one of the weakest records among Canadian provinces in growth of investment, productivity, and wages, which research studies link to the PST burden on businesses. Nearly 40 per cent of the $5 billion in annual PST revenues falls directly on business rather than consumers.

Non-partisan panels of economic experts have identified provincial retail sales taxes as one of the most damaging public policies in terms of productivity growth. In this context, harmonization's estimated onetime impact on the consumer price level of 0.7 of one per cent will be a bargain in return for many years of increased growth in jobs and real wages. How many HST opponents would turn down this exchange if they understood it?

The existing PST imposes a heavier burden on the poor and near-poor than the impending HST with its companion refundable tax credits. For example, a childless couple with income of $30,000 (above the poverty line) will gain by a couple of hundred dollars per year after netting their HST tax credits against their slightly higher living costs.

In contrast, retaining the PST will continue to impose large but hidden tax burdens not only on the poor but on all consumers. The $1.9 billion in PST paid directly by businesses gets built into the competitive prices that they must charge consumers.

As a consequence of these embedded business taxes, products that are nominally tax-exempt under the PST actually bear positive effective tax rates. All goods and services now carrying a seven per cent rate of PST have effective tax rates exceeding seven per cent. With the shift to the HST, these embedded taxes will disappear through rebates to businesses for the taxes they pay on their inputs, so that B.C.'s tax rate will be a true and uniform seven per cent for consumers.

Apparently, HST opponents prefer to pay their taxes in hidden, covert ways rather than in the highly visible manner of a value-added tax. B.C.'s move to harmonize its sales tax with the federal GST provokes the same misunderstandings and opposition as arose with the 1991 shift of the hidden federal manufacturers' sales tax to the highly visible GST.

Before casting their stones against the impending HST, critics should take a closer look at the decrepit and crumbling structure called the retail sales tax -- the tax that they are implicitly supporting.

Jon Kesselman holds the Canada research chair in public finance with the graduate public policy program at Simon Fraser University.

[chris gadsden]

 

 Why people are fed up with your Liberals Alwaysfishin.


Premier's bid to save face put Liberals on their HST road to ruin
 Election budget projections changed drastically two days after election
 By Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver SunApril 21, 2010  -As the B.C. Liberals reel from the backlash over the harmonized sales tax, their troubles can be traced back to a meeting that took place just two days after they won the last provincial election.

May 14, 2009. Deputy Finance Minister Graham Whitmarsh was providing Finance Minister Colin Hansen with a postelection update on the budget. Premier Gordon Campbell stopped by for a listen.

"A relatively casual meeting," as Campbell recalled it later. But the contents were anything but casual in terms of their impact on his third term of government.

"During that meeting was the first time that I heard that the projected, forecast deficit was going to be probably in excess of a billion dollars -- between $1.1 billion and $1.3 billion," the premier advised the legislature during debate last fall.

Campbell was taken aback. "I was very concerned about getting those numbers. I actually said to them: 'Why am I getting these numbers now?' "

The Liberals had tabled a budget with a deficit of $495 million. Many observers thought the figure was low-balled. But Campbell had insisted, as recently as the halfway mark of the campaign, that the number was a "maximum."

Now he was hearing that the deficit would be more than twice as hefty. And this just six weeks into the financial year.

It must have brought back memories of Campaign 1996 and the then victorious New Democratic Party government having to admit, just weeks after the election, that it was going to miss its budget target.

Campbell had exploited that so-called "fudge-it budget" scandal to lay waste to the NDP's credibility. He wasn't going to let the current version of the NDP do the same to him.

The finance ministry officials got their marching orders. "Go out and find out how we're going to meet the budget target of $495 million," the premier told them. "It was a relatively rapid meeting ... that work was commenced immediately on May 14."

Indeed it was. On the very next day, according to documents obtained recently under federal access to information legislation, Glen Armstrong, the provincial head of tax policy, contacted his federal counterpart to request information about the harmonized sales tax.

An obvious line of inquiry. The province had already tapped the available sources in its own budget, cutting travel, consulting contracts, grants and other forms of discretionary spending.

But Ottawa was offering "transition funding" to provinces that agreed to harmonize their provincial sales taxes with the federal goods and services tax. Ontario, which signed on earlier in the year, was in line for more than $4 billion. B.C.'s take on a per-capita basis would be $1.6 billion.

Genuine cash money. And more than enough of it to keep Campbell from looking ridiculous on the deficit, or so it must have seemed at the time.

Ten days after that initial inquiry, Hansen sidled up to his federal counterpart, Jim Flaherty, during a meeting of the country's finance ministers and confided that B.C. was reconsidering its long-standing opposition to harmonization.

Not just on his own initiative. Campbell backed him fully.

"Before the meeting, he said that he thought that we should be reconsidering our position with regard to HST," the premier recalled. "I said, 'Fine ... Find out what they're reaching in terms of an agreement between the federal government and Ontario, and see whether or not that would apply to British Columbia'."

Following the contact at the ministerial level, provincial officials determined that yes, if B.C. harmonized, it could expect equivalent terms to those being negotiated with Ontario, including a tidy sum of federal dollars.

Campbell kept a close eye on the talks. "I had a number of discussions with the minister of finance once he commenced having discussions with federal officials around the end of May."

By the time the cabinet was sworn in on June 10, harmonization was already in the works. Hansen, after taking the oath of office for another stint as finance minister, made a point of telling reporters that the government was still confident of the $495-million deficit. Meaning (as he admitted later), "I knew that I would be recommending the HST to my cabinet colleagues."

The HST didn't end up on the cabinet agenda for a decision until mid-July. By then, further deterioration in revenues (including bad news from Ottawa on income and corporate tax receipts) meant that even with the HST transition money, B.C. couldn't hope to hit Maximum Gordon's deficit target.

But also by then, the HST had acquired its own momentum. Ontario was doing it. The reduced tax burden would help the resource and export industries. The transition money would move the province back to balanced budgets sooner than without it.

"It was a cabinet decision," Campbell would say later. His ministers surely went along with him, as they always do. But the starting point on this particular road to ruin was May 14, when the premier ordered the finance ministry to find the money that would allow him to save face on the deficit.

vpalmer@vancouversun.com

[chris gadsden]

Thanks Alwaysfishin for your clarifiaction notes on the HST but will you now please list the new items that we will be paying the HST on. Please donot be like the Liberals who play dodgeball when they are asked this same question by the official opposition.

[chris gadsden]

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2010/04/12/AgainstTheOdds/index.html

[alwaysfishn]

 Why people are fed up with your Liberals Alwaysfishin.

.............

I thought we were talking about HST?

[alwaysfishn]

Thanks Alwaysfishin for your clarifiaction notes on the HST but will you now please list the new items that we will be paying the HST on. Please donot be like the Liberals who play dodgeball when they are asked this same question by the official opposition.

There have been all kinds of lists that have been posted on this thread already, so we don't need another one. 

The best way to determine how much it will cost you Chris, is to make a list of all the items that you plan on purchasing this coming year that are currently tax exempt. You also need to calculate the additional HST/GST credit you'll be receiving. And for true comparative purposes calculate how much income tax you pay versus what you would pay if you lived in another province.

That is a realistic way of determining the cost to you of the HST. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!

The Vanderzalm fear-mongering is just that. It's totally irrelevant to what an individual like you or I will be paying with the HST!

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2010/04/12/AgainstTheOdds/index.html

Thanks for the link Chris, interesting read.....

quote:
"One thing, though, is certain: Vander Zalm has given up none of the views that previously got him into trouble. "The premier’s problem," concluded Hughes in his report on the Fantasy Gardens affair, "stems not just from his inability to draw a line between his private and public life, but in his apparently sincere belief that no conflict existed so long as the public wasn’t aware of what was going on."

Asked last week what he had learned from that experience, Vander Zalm said: "I made a mistake selecting someone in the bureaucracy to be judge over me. That was a real boner." He admits no other regrets. "My values," he adds, "haven’t changed."

[alwaysfishn]

VICTORIA – Those of us old enough to remember the introduction of the GST in 1991 can find a warm feeling of nostalgia in today’s political argument over its logical extension, the HST.

No wait, that’s not nostalgia. It’s nausea.

Then-prime minister Brian Mulroney’s “hated” GST was proposed to be nine per cent, then brought in at seven amid a storm of unfocused outrage. It was sure to destroy the country, or whatever was left of it after the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mulroney handed off to B.C.’s own Kim Campbell, too late. Jean Chrétien’s Liberals crushed the Progressive Conservatives in 1993, chiefly by promising to replace the GST with a better tax, or a fairer tax, or something. They floated an alternative, aptly named BST, but it was all just a show for the poor dumb folks.

Here’s how dumb Canada was, not even 20 years ago. The GST replaced a 14-per-cent manufacturers’ sales tax that was imposed on our own industries, but not on imports. Then we stood around in our dirt-glazed lumberjack shirts, Molson stubbies in hand, and wondered why were still hewing wood and drawing water for the world.

Now B.C. voters tell pollsters they’re going to give the Kim Campbell treatment to Gordon Campbell, and elect the NDP to keep taxes down. A radio station does person-in-the-street interviews. Two out of three people don’t know what the HST is. The third is against it.

Unlike Chrétien, NDP leader Carole James doesn’t promise to repeal the HST, at least not right away. We’re stuck with it for five years, she says. The best bet is to stop it now, even though the province can’t change a federal law.

NDP MLAs have awkwardly joined up with Bill Vander Zalm’s petition drive, in the great tradition of running to the front of the day’s parade. They did it with the carbon tax too. They’ve turned into a reactionary force, confronting a flood of B.C. Liberal innovations, with none of their own.

No one really knows what a successful petition would mean, although the best guess is, not much.

Vander Zalm doesn’t promote an NDP government. That would be a hill too far even for him. He made a career out of fighting Ottawa, over the GST, abortion and French on corn flakes boxes, and this is more of the same.

At anti-HST rallies around the province, Vander Zalm talks openly about a conspiracy to impose global government. Canada’s doing the HST, they’ll talk U.S. President Barack Obama into it, and the next thing you know we’ll be merged with the European Union and B.C.’s tax rate will be set not in Ottawa, but in Brussels.

Vander Zalm says the HST will once again till the soil for a third provincial party, presumably the B.C. Conservatives under his sidekick Chris Delaney. (Chris who? Never mind.)
In 1999, Vander Zalm ran for the fledgling Reform B.C. in a Delta South by-election and was trounced by Val Roddick. He entered politics in the 1970s claiming to be both a federal and provincial Liberal, presumably because that was the vehicle he found with the keys in it.

Here’s the central reason that B.C. in 2010 needs to move to a consumption tax. The baby boomers are retiring. There won’t be enough people paying income tax to support them. This is not a prediction. As the engineer aboard the Titanic said, it is a mathematical certainty.

You might want to check the rising water before you sign a petition.

Tom Fletcher is legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press and BCLocalnews.com.
tfletcher@blackpress.ca

[chris gadsden]

Provincial web site on the HST and I cannot seem to see a list posted on what new products and services will now be subject to the HST. It amazes me they say all the false information the ant HST camp is saying but they will not post the information many of us would like to see. What are they are they afraid of?

http://hst.blog.gov.bc.ca/

I had hoped alwaysfishn would have posted them for us as I know he is an honorable gentleman but maybe he can not find the official list either.

[chris gadsden]

Provincial web site on the HST and I cannot seem to see a list posted on what new products and services will now be subject to the HST. It amazes me they say all the false information the ant HST camp is saying but they will not post the information many of us would like to see. What are they are they afraid of?

http://hst.blog.gov.bc.ca/


I had hoped alwaysfishn would have posted them for us as I know he is an honorable gentleman but maybe he can not find the official list either.

Thinking it will be hard to find my answers I sent this e mail to:

CTBTaxQuestions@gov.bc.ca
 (I wonder if I will get an answer to this simple request)
Dear Sirs,

Could you please provide a list of all products and services subject to the 12% HST come July 1st as I could not locate it on the Provincial Government's web site.

Thanks for you early reply,

Chris

[chris gadsden]

Wow did I get a fast answer( darn insulted as it was an automatic response, could I have expected more  ) but it looks like they will provide no list, well I could not find one.

Maybe you can.

Thank you for contacting the Tax Inquiries Group in the Policy and
Legislation Branch of the Ministry of Finance.
This is an automatic acknowledgement of your email.
Social Service Tax (PST), Carbon Tax, Hotel Room Tax, Motor Fuel Tax and
Tobacco Tax
The Tax Inquiries Group is responsible for providing responses to
questions relating to the Social Service Tax (PST), Carbon Tax, Hotel
Room Tax, Motor Fuel Tax and Tobacco Tax.
Should you require immediate assistance, our customer service agents can
be reached toll-free from anywhere in Canada at 1-877-388-4440 or
604-660-4524 within the Vancouver area between the hours of 8:30am -
4:30pm.  They are unable to provide information regarding the proposed
HST.
For additional information please visit our website at:
http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/rev.htm.
BC HST
Subject to the approval of the Legislature of British Columbia, the
harmonized sales tax (HST) is the single harmonized value-added tax that
will replace the GST and PST in British Columbia on July 1, 2010.
Information on the proposed harmonized sales tax (HST) is available at:
      http://www.gov.bc.ca/hst/ (General information)
   
http://www.sbr.gov.bc.ca/business/Consumer_Taxes/Harmonized_Sales_Tax/HS
T_Transitional_Rules.html (HST Notices)
      http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/gncy/hrmnztn/bc/menu-eng.html
(CRA information and links to detailed Questions and Answers)
We can respond with general information on the proposed HST.  However,
we are unable to provide technical rulings or interpretations on HST
questions.
The HST will be administered by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).  Please
direct technical HST inquiries to the CRA at 1 800 959-5525 (business
inquiries) or 1-800-959-8281 (individuals).
Thank you.
Tax Inquiries Group
Policy and Legislation Branch
Ministry of  Finance
7th Floor - 1802 Douglas Street

[alwaysfishn]

Provincial web site on the HST and I cannot seem to see a list posted on what new products and services will now be subject to the HST. It amazes me they say all the false information the ant HST camp is saying but they will not post the information many of us would like to see. What are they are they afraid of?

http://hst.blog.gov.bc.ca/

I had hoped alwaysfishn would have posted them for us as I know he is an honorable gentleman but maybe he can not find the official list either.

I appreciate the "honorable" mention Chris. 

Any products or services currently subject to GST will be subject to HST. There was a list posted earlier on this thread which was fairly inclusive. As I suggested earlier the more relevant way to calculate the effect of HST on your budget is to calculate the HST cost on the things you purchase versus the current PST/GST cost of the things you purchase. I suggest there is little difference.