It's anything but harmonized.
Basically, the proposal made by the government is to combine the GST and PST to attract more business investment in Ontario, saving businesses huge with their claim rebates. It will be in effect on July 1, 2010 and is supposedly meant to create new jobs.
What do we get out of it?
We will be paying more for our Tim Horton coffees, taxi rides, gas, airfares and more. Exemptions include houses under $400,000 and household products that were not subject to PST such as books, children's clothing and shoes, diapers, etc. Government will also send out a one time "transitional period" (three) cheques totaling $1,000 to families earning less than $160,000 a year and those who are single and earn less than $80,000 will receive just $300. Oh, and we get a tax cut, the lowest rate falling from 6.05% to 5.05. Those, who work part time (like myself) and makes less than $20,000 a year will "save" less than $50 with the tax cut. While, I'll continue paying those extra dollars everytime I fill up my tank with gas.
In my opinion, this is just another government policy to uphold business interests and rob the pockets of people like you and I who are struggling to make ends meet. Another method of a "bail out" as business taxes are planned to be cut by $4.5 billion over three years starting July 2010. To make the province more attractive to business, there are plans on cutting corporate taxes from 14% to 10%. Another $1.89-billion will be added to the deficit to bribe us. Ontario will be running a deficiet of over $58 billion over the next seven years, and us consumers, as always, will be paying the price for the economic crisis caused by the capitalist 'free market' system and the brutal mistakes of governments.
I'm sure the businesses saving money with the HST will pass on these savings down to us consumers, like all business entities do. HA.
Feel like suing the government? Better get onto it, as lawyers' services will also cost more come July 1st!
You can find out more about the budget's main highlights in the links below.
http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/9631--gst-and-pst-to-become-hst-as-ontario-budget-ups-your-taxes
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=3acd4a79-9152-4c18-bf71-8dc58326ab52&p=1
And if you're looking for a good laugh, don't forget to visit: http://taxharmonization.on.ca/
you are definetely right!!
ReplyDeleteit is a joke!
nicely put . . . we pay more in the long run, but most people can't be bothered to do the math to figure it out .. . .
ReplyDeleteIf this sales tax actually helps Ontario businesses, then shouldn't we be encouraging it? Ontario has been struggling recently. We have gone from a "have" to a "have not" province. . . we should now be receiving equalization payments. If this tax can help bring more jobs, then I am all for it!
ReplyDeleteWhy encourage businesses that will leave us in the near future?? Sure we can attract international corporations with low tax incentives, but they will only stay as long as it benefits them. They care nothing about Ontario or Canada. As soon as they can make more money in another country, they will be gone. John Deer is a fitting example. A company that was making millions in profit working in Canada picked up and moved to Mexico so that they could make even more millions. . . . we shouldn't be trying to attract all of these foreign companies to Canada, we should be creating Canadian companies that actually want to stay in Canada!
ReplyDelete