May 14, 2010

The B.C. government has released a list of items that will be taxed under the new Harmonized Sales Tax, after weeks of pressure from critics of the HST.

The tax, which blends the federal Goods and Services Tax with B.C.’s provincial sales tax, comes fully into effect in July. Some items became subject to the tax May 1.

It will be applied to everything from children’s clothes and haircuts to funeral services and movie and theatre tickets to professional sporting events, none of which was subject to the PST before.

The tax on alcoholic beverages will drop by three per cent because a special 10 per cent provincial tax drops to seven per cent in the shift to the HST.

A petition under B.C.’s Recall and Initiatives Act is underway, in which organizers hope to collect enough signatures to force a referendum on the HST law. Canvassers have until July 5 to sign up 10 per cent of the voters in each of the province’s 85 ridings.

A petition organizer had been critical of the province’s apparent reluctance to provide details, but now says the release of the list will help his cause.

“I expect we’ll get a lot more signatures now,” Chris Delaney said Friday. “As people see the actual impact of it and they realize how much it’s going to cost them, they’re going to realize it’s worse than they thought.”

B.C. Finance Minister Colin Hansen has accused Delaney’s campaign of providing an incorrect list of what will be affected under the HST.

But Delaney said the list was incorrect only because the province had previously not provided specifics on how the HST would be applied.

[CBC.ca]

You can read the full list here (you will need Adobe Acrobat – PDF format). For more info, visit the Government blog here.