Dirk Meissner, THE CANADIAN PRESS

VICTORIA, B.C. – B.C.’s all-party finance committee is split along party lines over the controversial HST.

The 10-member committee issued a pre-budget consultation report Friday that makes 49 budget-related recommendations for the Liberal government as it prepares its 2010 budget.

But the report doesn’t have the complete support of the committee’s four New Democrat members, who oppose 12 recommendations.

Eight of those recommendations are aimed at softening the blow of the harmonized sales tax when it takes effect in July.

The New Democrats want the Liberal government to scrap the HST altogether, and reject efforts to lessen its impact.

Last July, the government announced its plan to harmonize British Columbia’s seven-per cent provincial sales tax with the five-per cent federal goods and services tax, effective July 1, 2010.

The 12 per cent HST pleased big business, especially the struggling forest industry, because it amounts to a $2-billion tax cut, but consumers will pay more for everything from bicycles to homes.

The tourism and restaurant industries are especially opposed to the HST, saying the extra taxes will hurt business.

Tourism Minister Kevin Krueger got an earfull from tour operators over the harmonized sales tax at an industry summit in Kelowna on Friday.

Krueger was the keynote speaker at a regional tourism meeting and several tour operators told him they’re being “blindsided” by the tax.

Krueger told the business operators that Finance Minister Colin Hansen is working to lessen the impact on the industry.

The finance committee recommendations include maintaining the two-per cent Additional Hotel Room Tax that benefits the tourism sector beyond the current end date of June 30, 2011, and working with the federal government to address HST inequities between private and public providers of residential care for seniors.

It also recommends raising the proposed $400,000 HST rebate threshold for new homes and coming up with strategies to mitigate the negative effects on education boards, post-secondary institutions and health regions, in particular.

Krueger said he expects the Olympics to boost tourism enough to make the impact from the HST unnoticeable.

But for a Surrey man who responded to the committee’s online survey, it’s the working class who will bear the greatest burden from the harmonized tax.

“It always seems to be the middle-class worker is the one who pays for everything,” said Michael Villo wrote to the committee.

“I’m not getting anything from this HST,” he said. “Business is getting tax breaks, the poor are getting rebates from the government. What about the middle-class wage earner? All I get is tax increases when I take my family out to dinner.”

The finance committee received almost 3,500 submissions, written, oral and online. Public hearings were held in seven cities and other communities were linked to the committee through video conferences.

Committee chairman John Les, a member of the Liberal caucus, said the report also contains 12 recommendations to improve health care and save money, including increasing the use of nurse practitioners and supporting healthy-living initiatives.

Health care consumes more than 40 per cent of the provincial budget.

The other four recommendations opposed by the New Democrats involve activity-based funding for health care, mining, the property transfer tax and the government’s plan to return to a balanced budget in two years.

The B.C. budget forecasts a record deficit of $2.8 billion in 2009 and the deficit is forecast at $2.5 billion for the budget due in March.