Return of BC’s GST and PST

The BC HST Referendum results are in – and the HST is on its way out. The deadline was extended from July 22 to Aug 5 as the postal strike in June caused delays in voters receiving their ballots. The final count revealed that the YES side received 881,198 votes (54.73%) while the NO side garnered 728,927 votes (45.27%). Since the majority of voters chose ‘yes’, BC will return to the original 5% GST and 7% PST, and the HST will be phased out. <!–break–>

The transition period is expected to take a minimum of 18 months, according Finance Minister Kevin Falcon. In his announcement today he stated: “Businesses will need to change their own electronic and manual systems and processes to assess, collect, report and remit the PST and other related taxes to the provincial government.”

We know from experience that transition, no matter how dedicated the staff doing it, usually results in a variety of errors. These errors add up, and can be difficult to spot. Unless reviewing file systems is all you do (yes, that would be us). And we’ll show you where things went wrong, and you can move forward with this knowledge.