The title for today’s article often describes a trick that some people train their dogs to do. However I’m not going to talk about the latest tricks that Rover can do. Rover is my imaginary dog. About as big and as red as Clifford, just for reference. Today’s title refers to Ontario’s citizen’s attitude towards the HST.
Ontario and BC are both planning to implement the HST. In BC The citizens are rising up against this. There is a real grassroots movement to try to stop this thing. According to this CBC article they might actually succeed. If they don’t succeed then at least they have shown the ruling government that should it go through, they aren’t getting re-elected.
Let’s be clear about this, If the tax goes through in Ontario, none of the parties if elected are committed to repealing it. Once through, we are stuck with it. At the same time I don’t see anyone in Ontario rising up to try to stop this. Most people I’ve talked to, don’t want prices to increase for utilities, however that is what will happen effectively when the HST comes out. Most can’t stomach the tax, and yet we sit here and just take it.
I’m interested to see from my readers who actually likes this tax change?
I’m in Nova Scotia. We have had HST for many years now. We went from 15% down to 13%, now it’s increasing back to 15%.
Let’s face it, taxes suck, but they are necessary.
I would prefer to pay less, especially on items that are a necessity like toilet paper and feminine hygiene products. What I do like is consistency. I like to be able to calculate what my tax amount will be on a purchase without having to consider if the item has GST included.
In NB, we are still at 13% (for now) and have a had HST as long as NS has. We are used to it (like you got used to paying GST when it was introduced). We don’t pay tax on groceries & baby stuff. We only pay the GST on books. It is probably more noticeable for big ticket items (eg. cars). I this the HST was better than the piggy-backed tax we had before (I think our PST was 11% and after piggy-backing with GST, it was way more than 19%)