Quote Originally Posted by crappyservers View Post
Why everyone should stop whining about the HST tax.

HST, the harmonized sales tax thing for Canada, why are people complaining about this? They just assume its a tax with no benefits and go on there lunatic petitions. This petition is a waste of time, they will just dismiss it, and if they do for whatever reason cancel, they will be forced to add another tax that is less beneficial to Canada. Let me do a simple equation.

HST- Helps business, increase in profits- More jobs available and hey maybe expand, more jobs and less people unemployed.- Increased economy around Canada.- Over periods of time price tags will go down.

Now often what I believe people think about HST is the price of purchasing things in shop will be more expensive right? Over time this tax will reduce prices in stores.

So please, tell me whats wrong with this tax?
I don't live in Canada so I had to read up on this tax, your explanation was way off of what the tax is actually for.

In Canada, the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) combines the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and Provincial Sales Tax (PST) into a single sales tax. This changes the PST from a cascading tax system, which has been abandoned by most economies throughout the world, to a value added tax like the GST.

Like the GST and PST, the Harmonized Sales Tax is a regressive tax. To maintain the progressive nature of total taxes on individuals, Canada and other countries have accompanied the change with a reduction in income taxes, and instituted direct transfer payments (refundable tax credits) to lower-income groups, resulting in lower tax burdens on the poor.

Though economists support the change and studies have shown it will be revenue neutral, polls show that 82% of British Columbians and 74% of Ontarians opposed it before it was implemented.

To me this sounds like a better step forward for Canada. I apparently still have quite a bit of reading to do because I am lost on how it affects Canadian citizens the way AA says it will. So bear with me on this, I am extremely uninformed on this and would like a little help understanding it more.