I got the below in a forward from my aunt...has anyone else seen/heard of this?


Hello Everybody! This is a really important issue that will affect every single person in Ontario. Please sign the petition and send it back!
Subject: Fw: Ontario 's New 13% Harmonized Sales Tax - What It Will Mean To You

Hello. Next summer (2010) the Ontario Government is set to put into force its
new harmonized GST/PST sales tax which will apply a 13% sales tax to
everything we purchase.

Things That Were Not Subject To The Current 8% PST Will Be Now Taxed
As a result, things that were not previously taxed under the current Ontario
Provincial Sales Tax (PST) will be taxed at 8%.

The new 13% tax will therefore apply to things like your electric bill, your
gas bill, your water bill, condominium fees, insurance premiums, and every
other good and service you purchase. There are almost no exemptions.

The current Ontario PST tax does not apply to services, nor does it apply to
the purchase of certain goods. The new 13% tax will therefore extend the old
8% PST tax rate to the purchase of all goods and all services.

The New 13% Tax Will Apply To The Puchase of All New Homes
The new harmonized GST/PST will also apply to all purchases of all new homes.
If a person were to purchase a new $1 million dollar home in Toronto , they
would have to pay roughly $200,000 in taxes as a result of the Ontario land
transfer tax, the new city of toronto land transfer tax, and the new
harmonized 13% GST/PST.

Think about that and what that would do to real estate values in Toronto ..

It will cause property values to fall and kill the new home construction
industry and the jobs it creates.

And it won't be long before you'll hear our elected representatives telling us
that, because of the harm that has been inflicted to the new home
construction industry by the new 13% tax, it would be "fair" to extend the new
13% tax to sales of existing homes.

The New 13% Tax Is An Assault On Your Primary Residence
Canadians have had two things that they have always been able to count on as
being tax free - things that they could use to save money and accumulate
wealth. They are your: (a) primary home; and (b) RRSP. That's it.

The extension of the new 13% GST/PST to homes is simply a tax assault by the
government on your primary home. They want to tax your primary home and you
will suffer because of it.

Why? Because if a purchaser has to pay almost $200,000 in taxes to buy your
$1 million dollar home, the purchaser is going to pay less to you for your
home. The purchaser will reduce the amount he or she is willing to pay to you
in order to pay all the taxes.

The New 13% Tax Will Effectively Raise Your Income Taxes
Currently, the combined Federal/Ontario income tax rates are roughly 25% on
the first $20,000 of taxable income, 42% on the next $40,000 of taxable
income, and 46.5% on each dollar of taxable income over $60,000. On top of
that you have to add the "Fair Share Health Tax" of up to $1,000 each of us
has to pay.

If the Ontario Government gets away with implementing their new harmonized
GST/PST sales tax of 13%, the top effective income tax rates in Ontario will
be as follows (since you can't spend any of your tax paid dollars without
paying the new harmonized 13% GST/PST tax):

38% on the first $20,000
53% on the next $40,000
59.5% on every dollar over $60,000

On top of that, you have to pay your Ontario Fair Share Health Tax, your city
realty taxes, your city garbage fees, your city water fees, your city street
parking permit fees, your annual Ontario and new city of toronto vehicle
license plate fees, your Ontario land transfer tax, your new city of toronto
land transfer tax, your gasoline taxes, your liquor taxes, your air departure
taxes, your entertainment taxes, and so on.

OF ALL THE MONEY YOU WORKED HARD TO EARN, WHAT PERCENTAGE ARE YOU REALLY
KEEPING FOR YOUR OWN USE? 25%? 20%? 10%?

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH - FIGHT BACK
THIS HAS GOT TO STOP HERE OR WE WILL ALL SOON BE WORKING FULL TIME FOR THE
VARIOUS LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT IN ONTARIO .

YOU CAN ALREADY SEE HOW ARE LIFESTYLES ARE DECLINING BECAUSE OF THE ENORMOUS
TAX LOAD WE BEAR.

AS A RESULT, I URGE YOU TO TAKE THIS ISSUE SERIOUSLY AND TO FILL AND AND SIGN
THE PETITION AT www.unfairtaxgrab.com AGAINST THE NEW HARMONIZED GST/PST
TAX SET OUT BELOW.

I WOULD ALSO ASK YOU TO SEND THIS E-MAIL ON TO OTHERS THAT YOU KNOW AND ASK
THEM TO DO THE SAME.

IF WE DON'T WORK TOGETHER ON THIS ISSUE THE NEW HARMONIZED 13% SALES TAX WILL
BECOME A REALITY NEXT SUMMER.

THANK YOU.


To sign a petition go to www.unfairtaxgrab.com

Thousands say "no" to the HST

Dalton McGuinty claims "no one is complaining" about his unfair tax grab. You
proved him wrong this week. On Wednesday we sent out a request asking you to
send a message to the McGuinty Government about the HST. Almost instantly our
email box began to fill. By the end of the day we'd received nearly 2,000
messages.

New Democrat Members of Provincial Parliament did their best to read them
into the record in the Legislature, but they simply ran out of time. The good
news is: there are more debates to come and we'll be sending you details about
how to keep up the fight against this unfair tax grab. In the meantime, you
can read a transcript of the debate here .

Together we can stop the HST.

Yeah, I've known about the HST for a while... it's been in the news quite a bit.

I feel like even though it doesn't seem fair or popular, it's going to happen anyways, since the provincial government is a majority and they're projecting a $20 billion dollar defecit this year.

I don't think anything is going to stop the HST unfortunately.

I heard about this. No one is happy about this decision. Thanks for linking the petition page, I actually didn't know this existed.

Just for some extra info: the unfairtaxgrab.com site is owned and operated by the NDP of Ontario.

http://whois.domaintools.com /unfairtaxgrab.com

Can someone list the pros vs. cons on this new tax? (Instead of just the cons).

What will the collected tax-money be used for?

Originally Posted by Allan

Can someone list the pros vs. cons on this new tax? (Instead of just the cons).

What will the collected tax-money be used for?

Servicing the $20 billion deficit... spending in general... basically what taxes always get spent on.

HST is quite all over the place thanks to Canada's screwed up tax system.

We'll pay more tax on some stuff, less tax on others etc. It will largely affecting the housing market (which is why there's a lot of backlash as realtors and real estate lawyers are heavily offended) in a negative way, but will affect stuff like public instutions (schools) in positive ways as they will get bigger tax exemptions.

A lot of people are predicting that it might hurt foreign investment etc.

Personally, I'm a bit overwhelmed by HST and whether I like it or not as an economist. Canadian and Ontarian tax law is so ridiculously complicated that this thing will go over most of our heads.

One thing though: I have 0 sympathy for realtors. Housing markets have been in steady rise due to realtors driving up prices with ambiguous valuations etc. Housing markets are extremely strong right now, and by the time the HST rolls around, things will neutralize anyways. In the long-term the HST means nothing for housing.

In the short term though, as Ben said, it will help deal with the national deficit.

Whether it will be a good thing or not remains to be seen.

In addendum:

The Ontario PC party's new leader Tim Hudak has voiced opposition to the HST and has proclaimed that he will get rid of it if elected. I think this is hilarious because the HST was a Conserative Party of Canada idea, and all of a sudden politicians are clamoring about this simply because the Liberals did it.

I'm personally disgusted to see the NDP and the PC agreeing on an issue involving economic beliefs and taxation. Just proves that Canadian politics has turned into a melting pot of idealogies and we, the people, are getting screwed by personal battles between politicians choosing to align themselves with a particular colour.

Rohan is right when he says that Ontario/Canadian Tax laws are pretty random at some points. The 13% HST does suck when it comes to some things that weren't previously taxable, but I suppose it's a necessary measure to rid us of our debt.

You have to remember though, it's not like there was an 8% tax hike; Most things will still be priced the same.

"The new 13% tax will therefore apply to things like your electric bill, your
gas bill, your water bill, condominium fees, insurance premiums, and every
other good and service you purchase. There are almost no exemptions."

What the fvcking shit.

I HATE government. ._.

I'm going to kick a dog. Seriously, this makes me RAGE.

I absolutely hate one sided popaganda like the mail above, not because they're not informative, but because they give such a skewed view of what the objective truth is and quite a few people still take them as the absolute truth.

Anyway, the mail in the initial post was so sensationalized I went online and tried to find a few less biased views.

This is a much less biased view of what is actually happening, cost-wise:
http://www.citytv.com/toronto/cityne...ups-your-taxes

And this was a more realistic view of the effects:
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/...1-8dc58326ab52

Overall it does look like we'll be paying more, but not an insane margin (there are numerous new tax exemptions to balance things out, the entire document is full of small tax changes) like the email in the OP states; and it's likely going to hit the housing market the hardest, not individuals and businesses will be almost completely unaffected. A lot of the negative press this is getting is mainly due to the opposition parties using this as a rallying point and members of the realty market getting people behind them. I don't think increasing taxes is a positive, but this is a necessary increase and it's not a "blatant cash grab" as some people have put it. Anyway, I'm out, I should be paying more attention in Orgo.

The argument that people will get less money when they sell their houses is absolutely wrong. The HST does not apply to the sale of existing homes, only to the sale of new homes. If anything, this means that people who might have purchased a new home for $1 Million will likely turn to the existing market, driving up demand and prices for the house you live in now.

As for the petition, do you really think it will do anything? The Ontario government has made up their mind on this (thanks in large part to a $4.3 Billion incentive/transition package from Ottawa). If you want to avoid nonsense like this, move to Alberta. They have no provincial sales tax at all. Getting taxed only 5% on everything would be a pretty sweet deal.

Originally Posted by sniderj

If you want to avoid nonsense like this, move to Alberta. They have no provincial sales tax at all. Getting taxed only 5% on everything would be a pretty sweet deal.

Why should I move across the country? The elected leader of the province is doing something that no one I know of supports. The government is supposed to act in the best interest of the people that elected them. How is taxing people more in an unstable economy in anyones best interest but their own?

I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying there's not a damn thing we can do about it. This is worth too much money to the provincial government.

Im sick of this constant anti-tax attitude.

If a government spends money, it has to raise money somehow. Its not like any raised taxes go into Premier McGuinty's personal hoard of money. Taxes are necessary to pay for the government services we all enjoy.

If your going to complain about taxes, you better start bitching about how we should cut health care spending and end our subsidized university tuition, because that is what taxes pay for.