GST and Income Tax cuts announced

[return to the red]

Originally Posted by Mccree

Yes that is what I am referring to and I do not think it will change for this drop

surprising though because when you think about it the builder is taking draws throughout the process. Those draws are obviously to pay the material and labour being put into the house, those of which were taxed at 6%

[Mccree]

^^

But the builder can claim the GST they pay so it really cost them nothing. GST collected less GST paid = amount builder sends the government.

[Cowboy89]

While there are those decrying the GST reduction over the income/corporate taxes, there's still something to be said for actually reducing taxes in a meaningful way. That 1% cut represents 5.5 Billion back into the Canadian economy and not in the hands of government to blow on the usual government make-work projects. The more the conservatives hack off taxes in any form (whether it should be the more efficient income tax cut or the less efficient GST cut), the less there is for the Liberal's to blow when they get back into power. Also with the increased economic activity as a result of a reduction in the government take they might even collect more in taxes at the end of the day to reduce the debt further.

[V]

Wow, so that will reduce my taxes by $7.15 per paycheque? Wow, that's um, fantastic?
Better in my hands than the government's, I guess.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Up to 37,178

I think that is the figure for the bracket above? I don't have the exact figure, but I believe that it is about $16k/year for the lowest bracket, but over the personal exemption.

[CrusaderPi]

Originally Posted by V

Wow, so that will reduce my taxes by $7.15 per paycheque? Wow, that's um, fantastic?
Better in my hands than the government's, I guess.

meh, use it to tip your cabbie.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Slava

I think that is the figure for the bracket above? I don't have the exact figure, but I believe that it is about $16k/year for the lowest bracket, but over the personal exemption.

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/individ...axrates-e.html

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/individ...axrates-e.html

Thanks! Its been a long, long few days for me!!

[Barnes]

I would like to see them remove GST for certain goods like they do for food.

Books and other learning materials, computers, energy saving devices would be good examples.



Oh, and beer.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Barnes

I would like to see them remove GST for certain goods like they do for food.

Books and other learning materials, computers, energy saving devices would be good examples.



Oh, and beer.

The issue with that is that it skews the markets - certain items are cheaper for no reason other than arbitrary tax rules.

If you exempt books, do you exempt magazines? Comic books? Graphic novels?

Is a harlequin romance a better way to spend money than a documentary?

The selective application of value added taxes can have weird taxes, and then you can make things really complicated (and expensive to manage) if you try to make rules to correct the issues.

Personally, I would be more in favour of applying the GST to everything with no exceptions then providing some sort of refundable credit to offset the additional expense; just to make it easier for everyone to manage and remove the quirks that exist now (like that if you buy food in a serving for immediate consumption it is charged GST, but packaged in multiples it is groceries with no GST. For example, doughnuts)

[RW99]

They should have kept the GST at 6% and only adjusted income tax. Well, at least it will be slightly easier to calculate GST on purchases...

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by RW99

They should have kept the GST at 6% and only adjusted income tax. Well, at least it will be slightly easier to calculate GST on purchases...

I wish they buried the tax in the prices, but then had the amount of tax shown on the receipt.

[RW99]

Too bad the retailers will do their best to make sure that never happens. Maybe one day...

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

The issue with that is that it skews the markets - certain items are cheaper for no reason other than arbitrary tax rules.

If you exempt books, do you exempt magazines? Comic books? Graphic novels?

Is a harlequin romance a better way to spend money than a documentary?

The selective application of value added taxes can have weird taxes, and then you can make things really complicated (and expensive to manage) if you try to make rules to correct the issues.

Personally, I would be more in favour of applying the GST to everything with no exceptions then providing some sort of refundable credit to offset the additional expense; just to make it easier for everyone to manage and remove the quirks that exist now (like that if you buy food in a serving for immediate consumption it is charged GST, but packaged in multiples it is groceries with no GST. For example, doughnuts)

Yeah, I guess my idea would create a new branch of government dedicated to deciding whether or not a product should be taxed or not.

[PYroMaNiaC]

Originally Posted by RW99

Too bad the retailers will do their best to make sure that never happens. Maybe one day...

As an independant retailer, we have enough trouble competing with big chains on prices. We already deal with the stigma of being more expensive than the big guys - even though we usually are fairly competitive. Customer shopping habits and thoughts are hard to break. If we did put the GST into prices, then the sticker price on the shelf appears to be 5% higher than anywhere else. People remember sticker prices - they don't remember that we didn't charge then more than that at the till.

On top of that, it's very difficult to change our entire POS system to do this. Invoices for goods that come in have separate columns for GST and those amounts go into entirely different payable accounts. GST that comes in goes into other payable accounts. So not only would the POS till have to be overhauled, but also accounting.

It's not a slight to the customer that we don't do it. We don't want to NOT make your shopping experience fabulous. It would just have to be mandated so that all retailers would have to do it and incur the costs of doing so.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by photon

Lol we just had this conversation in the office. Pay down the debt, and the GST is the only "fair" tax so leave it alone.

Wasn't the GST created in the first place to pay off the debt?

[Madman]

Originally Posted by greyshep

OK. I will keep my fingers crossed on this.

If you can let me know what you find out, it would be appreciated.

From the other replies it sounds like we should see this benefit.

Please keep us up to date, I'm also in this boat and would be ecstatic if it is based on possession date.

[Lurch]

I would expect that the builder would get the benefit, not the buyer, in most cases. I sold a new infill house last time when the GST went down, and since the sales contract was written "price inclusive of GST" we simply made more money as a result of the cut - the house price was unchanged. Your contract may be different, but as far as I know, ours was pretty standard.

[guzzy]

It is just nice to finally see a govt make promises and actually keep them. I am not quite sure which promises the liberals actually fulfilled in their 14 years while stealing hundreds of millions for their ad scam. What a joke....and Ontario still supports them.

[ken0042]

Regarding the GST on houses, I seem to recall that when GST went down from 7 to 6% that houses were not affected; because GST on new homes is less than 5% with the rebate you get from the gov't.