Mr. Whitcombe,
One of the issues around the HST implementation was misinformation, yet your article only adds further disinformation. As a businessman, I can assure you that products for resell whether they are improvements to real property or not, the HST is neutral; consumers are paying the same as they were before.
This is primarily because even where a good was considered an improvement to real property such as an alarm system and the consumer did not previously pay PST, the contractor did and then consequently marked up with the PST included in his base cost.
I suggest you Google VAT tax for examples.
Even where there have been actual increases on the services side such as in restaurants, you have to remember the owner of the restaurant paid PST on the tables, the chairs, the napkins, the uniforms, the ovens, the menus, the utensils etc., these costs had to be reflected in their prices.
With these costs removed you lower their cost base and while they may not immediately lower their price, they may take that savings and add staff or upgrade equipment and thereby improve someone else's business.
To suggest that the implementation of the HST somehow hurts someone making $20,000 and does not impact someone making six figures is just wrong.
First off someone earning $20,000 in B.C. pays little to no provincial income tax certainly the lowest in Canada, and secondly they are actually already being reimbursed $230 of the HST to offset any possible inequity.
You then quote a 60 per cent increase in consumption taxes over the past decade but forget to mention much of included the sin taxes on alcohol and tobacco.
Were these not purposely increased above and beyond by every government in our lifetime as an attempt to recoup some of the added healthcare costs that we all incur to these very products?
Lastly I would just comment on how unfair it is to condemn the HST as anything like a new or added form of taxation; it is simply a value added tax that replaces, simplifies and makes more visible taxes we were already paying one way or another.
There is nothing politically sinister about making taxes more visible; but there may very well be to science professors expounding on subjects obviously best left to economic professors.
As a businessman, the HST simplifies a complicated system and is therefore a good thing, as a consumer I accept I might pay a little more when I consume more to fund the services I and my family rely such as healthcare and education.
Let the facts speak for themselves.
Chris Sitter
Prince George
