Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Thank God the HST is coming

The hysteria about the HST is BC is getting crazy, here are some basic facts:

The BC forest and film industries will both be more competitive. The roughly 3-4% gain in the forest industry will hasten the return of many mills into production.

Most costs for most families will be lower than now. Your basics of life will not have HST on them. Clothes for adults will be 3-5% cheaper than now. If you buy a canoe, it should be about 5% cheaper.

There will be a significant savings in the costs to collect the tax.

Business that had to collect PST will be saving a lot of time not having to fill out the paper work to collect it.

Yes, restaurant meals will be 3-5% more expensive than now.

Yes, the self employed, and this includes me, will have to pay more. It will cost you more for consultants, lawyers, complimentary health practitioners and trades people.

Buying dishes will be cheaper as will gardening supplies, shoes, light-bulbs, furnaces, couches, and almost every other physical goods that you buy.

The people in BC that will be worse off with the HST are those that can afford to hire a lot of self employed people and go out to dinner a lot. Does that sound like you?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I want you to issue a public apology when the HST fails!

Anonymous said...

As a matter of fact, that does sound like me and many others!

I'm a single monther, self employeed with 3 children under the age of 10. Under my current circumstance we are forced to eat out more than making a home cooked meal. It's already a burden to make ends meet. Paying an extra 5% certainly does not help.

Since you're so pro HST, please explain to me how the HST will help my family?

Bernard said...

Much depends on your income and your work, if you are low income you will be financially better off. Your work matters as well.

If you qualify for the low income credit, you will get more in the credit than you would pay out in extra costs for the meals, a lot more.

The HST will help your family in general by making a stronger economy in BC. The PST is a very badly applied tax that causes significant problems to the economy, getting rid of the PST is a dramatic benefit.

You are also helped because the cost of government is lower than it is now and the cost of goods with PST now will be cheaper after the HST comes into place.

You are also better off because more people working in BC means more taxes paid and more money for schools and healthcare.

If you notice, economists left and right agree that changing to a value added tax like the HST is a huge benefit to the economy.

shinjuku said...

i ask if its so great why didnt they campaign on it