Quote:
Originally Posted by darklord700
Because the city hasn't been collecting any sales tax before so this is a brand new initiative. I'm involved in the BC PST/GST to HST changeover and there's a lot of work and planning involved, not to mention costs.
Even the simple reduction of GST form 7% to 6% to 5% took some effort too.
So to start from scratch is not just simply as slapping 1% on to every purchase and call it a day.
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If you're involved then you surely know more about the topic than I do. I'm not criticizing your stance merely asking questions to understand as on the surface the addition doesn't seem like it would be that difficult.
What I mean is, the businesses have recently went through two sales tax changes (7% to 6%, and 6% to 5% as previously mentioned). So a layperson would assume they have a process in place to adjust their payment methods for a change in sale tax.
Additionally a layperson would think that the federal government would have a method of keeping track of how much tax was collected at each retail location.
Then it would be a matter of saying, of these businesses that collected 6% GST in Calgary, we'll figure out how much 1/6th of that is, and cut the city a cheque.
This seems like a very straightforward way of going about things, and why a layperson would assume that it really wouldn't be difficult.
Now, I know it's more complicated than that, I just don't know how. So I guess my question is . . . how?