I seem to recall paying 7% on many things on the old system. Why does everyone say it is now a choice between 10 or 12%?
[quote=“herbie_popnecker”]You are still going to pay 12% on your haircut. There’s not one promise to remove the PST from services included in the HST.
You’ll also get no more HST rebate cheques.
Then there’s the problem of the $1.6 billion the Feds kicked in. Layton promised to forgive it, not Harper. It will have to be paid back UNLESS (no one mentions this) the agreement expires in 4 years and THEN we go back to two taxes.
So do you want to risk paying even more tax to end it right away?
Do you want to wait 4 years and then go back to two taxes totalling 12%
Do you want to stay with the HST and pay 11% next year, 10% after that and keep the rebate cheques?
If there’s one thing I nail politicians on it’s sticking to ideology over common sense and what’s good for the country. The same applies to people, but they’re worse. Voting for parties that represent business interests instead of their interests and then bitching about it when they do.[/quote]
Watch the town halls meetings I linked in earlier. According to Chris Delaney only about %33 of that 1.6 Billion has been paid to the province thus far - so - only %33 would need to be paid back. Furthermore, as a clear signal to the public all the pro-HST adds that are providing biased “positive points of view from the public” is the sign that the government, using massive amounts of your tax dollars is attempting to skew the opinion on the tax. They’re not even coy in the way they are conducting this - it’s brutal, biased propaganda in favor of ramming this tax down our throats despite the public outcry.
• Government will be under no obligation to reduce the tax by 2012 to %10 (as proposed).
• Disingenuous number crunching on the governments part: They tell you it costs $350 more a year when in actuallity it’s closer to $1200.00 per year.
• Disingenuous HST was to be a “Revenue Neutral Tax” yet government failed to divulge the tax will bring an $850 Million dollar overage for the government.
• Cost will be $28 Billion over 10 years. Independant study shows a creation of 24,000 jobs after the first 5 years - that is $1,166,666.00 per job.
• HST was introduced without due consultation to the people of BC.
• HST is a FEDERAL tax that we as British Columbians cannot control, as opposed to the PST.
• 700,000 British Columbians petitioned to have the HST repealed - more than likely only a fraction of what the real “Anti-HST” is.
• Seriously, watch the Town Hall meetings on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=(http://www.youtube.com/user/HSTPublicForums)
I am not against big business, but this tax shift from large corporations to the everyday British Columbian is simply and unethically hard on middle class and low income families in the province.
That is not true. I don’t understand why you keep coming back with this bit of misinformation. HST is a federally administered tax in the Martime provinces, BC and Ontario. In Quebec it is actually a provincially adminstered tax. Those arrangements are governed by tax agreements between the feds and each province.
Each province participating in HST can set its own rate for the provincial portion. The provinces are also free to set whatever point of sale rebates they want on the provincial portion of HST. That is why there are differences in HST rates in different provinces and in what qualifies for rebates.
Welcome to a Westminster style democracy. Governments are never obliged to do what they say when acting within their jurisdiction, other than to obey their own laws unless and until they decide to change them. Its called parliamentary supremacy.
Right, so they promise no HST, and then introduce it. They were under no obligation to actually live up to their campaign promises.
They promise to reduce the rate, but aren’t obligated to actually do so.
Seems to me that the only way we can actually control what happens with respect to the HST is to vote it out of existence. Anything else, and we don’t get a say in the matter.
And don’t say that we can vote for a party that is against the HST. That’s what got us in this mess in the first place.
Whichever way you vote you have a say in the matter, but only up to a point. The government can still do whatever they want and take their chances at the polls, which is still a long ways off.
[quote=“zerocool”]
And don’t say that we can vote for a party that is against the HST. That’s what got us in this mess in the first place.[/quote]
Even though I voted NDP last election (I think that Gary is a capable MLA) I would not counsel you to vote for the NDP, whose new leader is strangely quiet about this issue, just a Carole James was also ambivalent. I think that the NDP sees the HST issue as an opportunity to rally opposition not so much against the HST as against the Liberal government.
I would be surprised if an NDP government would be that quick to give back money to the feds, cancel the money that the feds have yet to pay, and take away HST rebates to low income people, many of whom are senior citizens. When she was leader James pretty much said as much during a refreshingly candid interview.
I think that an NDP government would do much like premier Clark is doing, which is promising to tinker around with the HST - adjust rates and perhaps POS rebates - to make it more palatable, but I don’t see them going back to the way things were if they form a government next election.
Then explain why so many middle class ppl don’t vote for and openly MOCK the one party that truly represents their interests.
The following seems to capture the arguments in favour of keeping the HST.
[quote=“herbie_popnecker”]You are still going to pay 12% on your haircut. There’s not one promise to remove the PST from services included in the HST.
You’ll also get no more HST rebate cheques.
Then there’s the problem of the $1.6 billion the Feds kicked in. Layton promised to forgive it, not Harper. It will have to be paid back UNLESS (no one mentions this) the agreement expires in 4 years and THEN we go back to two taxes.
So do you want to risk paying even more tax to end it right away?
Do you want to wait 4 years and then go back to two taxes totalling 12%
Do you want to stay with the HST and pay 11% next year, 10% after that and keep the rebate cheques?
[/quote]
These seem to be the most reasoned arguments for voting against HST.
Governments can change their minds. If elected three years from now would the NDP go back to the PST?
Independant source? That would mean that a person would be spending $17,000 a year on items that were PST exempt and are now taxed. That is an awful lot of junk food, smokes and haircuts. There is no change for most items.
Can a government ever do anything more than estimate revenues? How could they have known what would be collected?
Neither HST nor PST are job creation programs. Their primary purpose is to pay for services. Some taxes are better for the economy than others.
Yes we all know that, but what relevance does that have to the referendum?
False.
Yes, and the outcome is that there will be a referendum, so what’s the point?
As a business owner, I used to have to do the PST myself and then bring a cheque to the gov’t office.
Even at $12 an hour, we never in 10 years found an employee capable of doing the calculations in under a day. $90 in wages, $50 in commissions, $40 loss to keep a moron employed. Usually more than that as 2/3 couldn’t run a spreadsheet without pressing the spacebar, wiping the formula and then interrupting me five times because ‘the computer was broken again’.
[quote=“herbie_popnecker”]As a business owner, I used to have to do the PST myself and then bring a cheque to the gov’t office.
Even at $12 an hour, we never in 10 years found an employee capable of doing the calculations in under a day. $90 in wages, $50 in commissions, $40 loss to keep a moron employed. Usually more than that as 2/3 couldn’t run a spreadsheet without pressing the spacebar, wiping the formula and then interrupting me five times because ‘the computer was broken again’.[/quote]
I think that only someone who has been in small business, retail in particular, would realise that, other issues aside, PST is lot of extra work and generally a pain in the ass. Rolling the provincial tax together under HST so that there is only one return is better.
BTravenn, you seem to have made up your mind that the HST is a good thing and you are using MeepMeepZoom’s arguments as a means of knocking the anti-HST stance.
I would like to get some clarity on the issue so we can actually discuss this with some reason even though emotion will continue to play a part. Bare with me as I try to be as unbiased as I possibly can. And to be clear, I am not expecting BTravenn to be the sole responder here.
What is the HST?
As far as a can tell and please correct me if I am wrong, the HST is a tax shift of approximately $2B a year from corporations to consumers. Corporations will no longer pay $2B a year in taxes. To make up that shortfall, consumers are now being taxed on previously exempt items.
That should be the crux of the debate. I doubt that anybody would oppose a harmonized tax (i.e a single tax) that saves small businesses and governments bookkeeping costs and hassles. But the shift from corporations to consumers is the real issue. If they harmonized the tax and kept all the exemptions from before, I don’t think we would be having this discussion.
If I am correct to this point, I would like to go one step further.
We have been told that this shift is good for the economy. Consumers paying these extra taxes means that the price of doing business will go down and therefore the costs of goods will go down and/or more jobs will be available. (I am not sure if everybody sees it this way.) As well we have been given a one time gift of $1.6B from the federal government.
If I am correct to this point (and please correct me if I am wrong) then I will take one more step.
Leaving aside the scummy way in which it was introduced. Leaving aside the lack of trust many have for the government that is proposing the tax and whether or not we believe them when they say it is good for us. Leaving aside all the misinformation and manipulation that has come out of the government regarding the referendum e.g. "it is fixed - believe us when we say that the % will go down. Let’s leave all of that aside. (And as you can see, I admit it will be very hard for me to do so),
Could we get arguments for and against the shift of $2B per year from corporations to consumers.
HST is a tax shift. Business saves - especially big business - and consumers pay more. The government is actually making a lot more on the HSt than they thought they would.
Indpendent panel report shows - that HST costs each BC family $350 more per year.
hstinbc.ca/making_your_choic … rt-summary
I understand the benefit in job creation and stimulus - that’s great but why does it cost us more? The government does not need to raise my taxes to create jobs.
I am not opposed to a sales tax… in fact I would be in favour of getting rid of income tax and increasing sales tax - the only people who pay income tax are honest people. everyone pays sales tax. That’s fair. So lower my income taxes and keep the HST - fine. but don’t ask me to accept a tax increase because it’s good for business…
I will be voting against it.
To my friends and acquaintances who are pushing me to accept the 2% tax decrease by accepting the HST I ask, how long do you believe the HST will remain at that level? Maybe two years tops, in my estimation.
YES! KILL IT!
All the ads and crap about HST being reduced to 10% leave out some important information…it’s by 2014 NOT NOW!!
They also say if you vote against the HST the taxes will go up to 12% as if the deduction has already occurred. Lying cocksuckers and they have the balls to accuse vander zalm of fudging the truth.
There is a facebook app that gives you a chance to analyze, discuss and determine your position on the HST.
When I go to the site to download it, I get this request.
HST Debate App is requesting permission to do the following:
Access my basic information
Includes name, profile picture, gender, networks, user ID, list of friends, and any other information I've shared with everyone.
Send me email
HST Debate App may email me directly at ...
Post to my Wall
HST Debate App may post status messages, notes, photos, and videos to my Wall
Access my custom friend lists
I have nothing to hide on my facebook page. Pretty blah stuff. But I am always cautious about giving out more than necessary. Should I be concerned about giving out this information which I know facebook already has or is this pretty standard stuff. I haven’t played any games on facebook because I haven’t been willing to allow them access. But this app sounds like something I want to try.
rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/policyn … -tax-shift
interesting article:
B.C.'s regressive tax shift
BY MARC LEE | JUNE 28, 2011
With much of the talk on taxes in B.C. about the HST, we issued a new report today that looks at the bigger context for B.C.'s tax system (Vancouver Sun op ed here, CTV News story here). Iglika Ivanova, Seth Klein and I compare and contrast B.C.'s tax system after a decade where tax cuts were touted as the solution to every problem. Those tax cuts came with a promise of prosperity for all, but 10 years down that road, too many families are still struggling financially, and the gains of economic growth have been heavily concentrated at the very top of the income distribution (nationally, the top 1 % captured one-third of the new income from economic growth, as estimated by my colleague, Armine Yalnizyan).
Our B.C. analysis draws on Statistics Canada’s Social Policy Simulation Database and Model to look at total B.C. taxes and key subcategories of personal taxes (income tax, commodity tax, property tax, MSP premiums) as a share of total household income, in 2000 and 2010. Results were broken down into deciles, and because so much of the real action is in the top decile it was further broken down into top 1 %, next 4 % and next 5 %.
Unsurprisingly, total B.C. taxes as a share of income declined for every income group. This has undermined funding for public services, but has also led to a shift in who pays how much. The average tax cut was 2.3 % of income, though there were larger gains as income increased. Tax reductions were only worth about one per cent of income for the lower-middle deciles, increase to 1.8% of income for the upper-middle, then rise to 3.6 % for the top 10%. However, the top 1% got tax cuts worth 5.1% of their income. In dollar terms, that is a gain of $41,000 for the top 1%, while those in the bottom deciles average a tax cut of a couple hundred bucks.
By contrast, in 2000 B.C. had a relatively flat tax system, with a modest bump in tax rate for the top 1%. By 2010, the tax system as a whole had shifted to become regressive. Income tax cuts, unsurprisingly, were the principal driver of lower taxes. The value of income tax cuts averaged about 0.2% of income for the bottom decile, rising to 5.2% for the top 1%. The provincial income tax system continues to be progressive, but has flattened out over the course of the decade.
Gains from income tax cuts were somewhat offset by increases in MSP premiums for middle-income groups, as much as half of a percent of income. But as “head tax” MSP premiums inevitably shrink as a share of income as income rises. So much so that for the top 1% the difference between 2000 and 2010 is negligible (and rounds to zero). For the bottom two deciles, exemptions based on income mean that the rate is effectively zero in both years; changes to increase the threshold meant reduced payments to a very small share of income (0.1%) for D2.
Bottom line: we need a fair tax system, and recommend a Fair Tax Commission that would engage a conversation with British Columbians about what public services we need, and how to pay for them fairly. A good tax system must also compensate for the tremendous inequality that arises in market incomes, which reiterates the need for progressive income taxes at a time when CEO, bankers and lawyers are making huge gains while middle class households are getting squeezed.
We were pleased to see a positive response from the Premier, who apparently shares our concern about the declining middle class. Alas, her Finance Minister, Kevin Falcon, simply dismissed the study without reading it. He then comments: "They want to go back to a system – tax the rich. They’re talking about the professionals that we’re trying to attract to B.C., the doctors and the nurses. We want them to come to B.C. and we want them to stay. We don’t want to chase them out with a tax system."
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Rather than drop the HST percentage, I’d have offered to drop MSP premiums and raise the provincial personal tax exemption as little.