Canada has implemented a new tax savings from December to February for some things like taxable groceries, crafts, and gaming physical media. I wanted to get a new Xbox controller and found the best price at Walmart for $55 a week ago. The tax holiday starts today and I now see that the $55 has increased to $62 and change, which is about how much tax I should be saving. Great to see this thinly veiled attempt to help Canadians ( /s - win votes) is just going to be extra profit in the corporations’ pockets.
I am just really glad none of the crap I sell is included. The list and logistics to comply with this “holiday” is insane.
Lets say you run a liquor store:
- Beer, cider, sake and wine are now not taxed
- But wine, cider and sake over 22.9% is still taxed
- Spirit coolers and premixed alcoholic beverages are now not taxed
- Spirit coolers and premixed alcoholic beverages over 7% are still taxed
- Gift boxes/baskets are taxed
- Unless those boxes/baskets have more then 90% the value in beverages that meet the tax holiday requirements
This is not even opening the other categories (Oh don’t even think about child car seat/strollers). The cost of this program on stores and taxpayers (the cost of it is payed by the lack of tax and also the tax collected being diverted to this program) is not worth the 5% off some people will see (since most places will just up the price 5%).
Edit: and as the radio just pointed out this is a tax break on mostly luxury goods so it only really helps the people who don’t need the help. (the example given was a dinner party would be 5% cheaper but a single parent’s heat is not).
It would cost thousands in labor to set up temporary tax rates based on alcohol content. Most systems have tax rates which apply to product categories, not alcohol content. Liquor store pos systems in the US, at least in my state, typically don’t even store the abv in the price book, which would make this taxation virtually impossible to comply with.
Yeap, this is Canada where stuff like this is rolled out in a month or so and businesses are just told to comply.
(Oh and those examples are from the Canada.ca official list not hyperbole)
Edit: it also comes with a friendly threat!
"Make a reasonable effort to comply
Businesses who make reasonable efforts to comply with the legislation will not be the focus of our compliance actions.
We will be focusing on situations where businesses willfully and egregiously refuse to comply with the temporary measures, such as a business that collects the GST/HST and does not remit it to the CRA."
Crazy, they’re basically saying, ‘we know this is impossible so just do your best, as long as you remit everything you collect then it doesn’t really matter what/how you collect’.
This is very unfair to the small business because inevitably there will be some customers who will be pissed off when the store doesn’t collect properly, and small business won’t even come close to doing it correctly.
Making temporary short term massive changes to taxation is a very dumb idea. Canada must be drinking uncle Sam’s koolaid to be acting this foolish.
