The elimination of British Columbia’s controversial Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) on April 1 has left marginal to moderate impacts in its wake for some South Cariboo businesses.
Despite a decrease in taxes on certain items from 12 to five per cent, such as restaurant meals and golf memberships, consumers seem to have little to say about it so far.
Meanwhile, most retailers and many service companies have had to register and revamp equipment and bookkeeping for the return to Provincial Sales Tax (PST), but several indicate they’ve had a smooth transition.
Yummers EnRoute restaurant owner John McCarvill notes while PST-exempt meals chopped the food tab, he has not overheard any customer remark “wow, I saved seven per cent.”
“I’ve had no comments from customers whatsoever. [But], when they come to Yummers, they are not spending a lot of money anyway.”
One fellow did mention the increased cost for a beer, he adds, with the return to the old system of liquor taxation from 12 to 15 per cent.
“He said ‘Holy smokes, the price of liquor sure went up’. And I said, ‘Well actually it was the tax that went up’.”
The HST was “clearly a better way to go” from his perspective, McCarvill says, adding he doesn’t “believe for a second” the industry will get the boost some say it will from the change back to PST.
“I just reprogrammed the [cash register] machine and that was that – no issues there. But it is going to make my life a little harder? The HST was a much easier process from an accounting perspective.”
He adds Yummers will stick to its regular summertime review of menu pricing versus its actual costs, but won’t raise prices to cash in on the customer’s tax advantage.
Meanwhile, 108 Golf Resort & Outdoor Adventures took steps to save its members some tax money.
General manager Jeff Kendy says the resort usually encourages golf members to join early (by Dec. 31), but this year, management asked everyone to stall until April 1.
“We knew this change was going to happen, so we didn’t want them to pay before April 1 because it would have meant 12 per cent tax.”
This saves members $56 on each $800 membership, which he notes jumps to $112 savings for a couple.
Kendy adds many members were “happily surprised” to be able to save the taxes.
“It’s worked out great for us and for them. But, it just started, so we don’t know what that is going to mean for extra memberships.”
However, he says the HST was better for the business.
“We did better by having HST only because we got to get everything back [in rebates], whereas now we’ll just get the PST.”
The transition was easy as there was “a lot of support’ in the government help lines and websites, he explains, and it only took one staff member a couple of hours to switch over.
Canada Safeway manager Sean Watson says he has seen little impact from the return to PST, despite a seven per cent drop in taxes on deli and snack food.
“People will buy it regardless with us, so the HST-PST conversion doesn’t really affect us hugely. We haven’t heard too many comments and I don’t think that we [will].
“For us, the difference is with tobacco [for which a new taxes applies] and diapers [which lose an exemption], and we haven’t heard any trickle effect on that stuff as of yet.”
He adds Canada Safeway took care of everything and all the local store had to do was inventory tobacco products, so the transition was “seemingly flawless.”
For more information or to register for PST, visit www2.gov.bc.ca, then go to Business & Investing at bottom of page and click Taxes & Rebates, then Return to PST.
