Hst

[Rodri]

Shopkeepers are forced to become tax collectors and the added paper work and associated costs could actually cause them to delay employing more people.

These types of taxes do have a higher impact on low and fixed income earners. The other factor to be considered is that having a 10% sales tax (estimated tax figure) at the point of sale means that every time prices increase, for whatever reason, the tax take increases as well. We have a GST in Australia and I have never seen overall price reductions since it was introduced. Politicians will always try and tell you that you will be better off but I have yet to see that happen either.

[EDIT] Addendum:
If you ever ask a politician why they want to introduce a tax of this type, they will eventually admit that it is intended to "broaden the tax base". If you look at that phrase then you can see the reason why taxes of this type are more of a burden on the poor. Broaden the tax base, the base being the lowest income earners in the society and broadening that base means bringing into the tax-paying base those whose income is below the taxable threshold in regard to income tax. So a pensioner (for example) who spends 100% of their income on living expenses will now be included in the tax base and will be paying 10% of their income as tax. The same applies to all low income earners who live from paycheck to paycheck. On top of any other taxes that they are already paying they will also be paying 10% of their net income as sales tax. Meanwhile, a person with a high income, who only spends 50% of their income on living expenses will only be paying 5% of their net income as sales tax. These are also the people who can afford to pay tax accountants and lawyers to find ways to minimise the amount of income tax that they pay. That could mean that the % of their real net income that they spend on living expenses is even lower than 50%, so the amount of sales tax they pay would be even lower than 5% of their real net income.

(All numbers are example figures only as I don't know the actual rates being considered in Canada.)[/EDIT]