13% HST: Liberals plan ad campaign this fall to convince voters controversial reform is needed despite fears of higher prices
Robert Benzie
Queen's Park Bureau Chief
Buoyed by an easy by-election win last week and emboldened by a largely incoherent opposition, the Liberals are aggressively pushing ahead with their controversial harmonized sales tax.
Stepping up efforts to sell the levy, which blends the 8 per cent provincial sales tax with the 5 per cent federal GST as of July 1, Premier Dalton McGuinty's government is framing it as a matter of "tax fairness."
"Ontario cannot afford to fall behind," said Revenue Minister John Wilkinson, who has been criss-crossing Ontario selling the reforms and is planning an advertising blitz later this fall.
"We're still listening to music on an eight-track when the rest of the world has an iPod. We can't attract investment and jobs in the 21st century with a tax system from the 1960s," Wilkinson told the Toronto Board of Trade last week.
Dr. Eric Hoskins' by-election victory Thursday in St. Paul's – a vote opponents billed as an HST referendum – has boosted the Liberals' confidence about a tax that will increase the price of gasoline, home heating fuel, newspapers, fast-food value meals, funerals, legal services and hundreds of other things.
"We learned some lessons from St. Paul's," said a Liberal strategist. "We figured out that trying to sell the tax by itself won't work so we are making it just one piece of a $15 billion reform that is all about tax fairness."
The Liberals are also encouraged because neither Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak nor NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who oppose the HST, has pledged to repeal it.
"We won't scrap it. I guess my question to you and Mr. Hudak is will you?" chortled Finance Minister Dwight Duncan last week to Tory revenue critic Lisa MacLeod in the House.
"It is the right policy for the times. It is the policy that (former PC premier) Mike Harris has even endorsed ... (federal Finance Minister) Jim Flaherty, a lot of really prominent Conservatives," said Duncan.
Even Horwath, who has found traction with the message that the tax change helps Bay Street on the backs of Main Street by transferring the burden from business to consumers, has been unwilling to pledge to eliminate the HST if she takes power in 2011.
Pouncing upon this weakness in the opposition's argument against the tax, Wilkinson has gone on the attack, accusing the Tories and New Democrats of "trying to spin a myth."
"They are trying to create the impression that our tax reform comes down to nothing more than increased sales tax for many items," the minister said. "That's a myth. The fact is we are proposing to permanently cut income taxes for people and all businesses, both large and small, in 2010," he said, adding the entire package of cuts and rebate cheques is worth $15 billion over three years.
The Liberals also welcomed a TD Economics report Friday that predicted prices could drop by 0.8 per cent to 0.9 per cent, though it found the tax change will cost Ontario households up to $3 billion more a year.作者: 法官 时间: 2009-9-21 11:26
想不通为什么说并税能给企业减少财务方面的开支？我觉得就是有，那也是针对少数企业。企业最欢迎的地方是并税能带来税前收入的增加，以前从事批发和服务行业的企业只向客户收取GST，并税后收取HST，账面就收入增加了8%，虽说这8%是要交还给政府的，但企业或多或少会用自己的开销冲抵，使之变成自己的收益。但在财务上，以前是一个税，现在还是一个税，没什么变化，只是税率高了。所以最终受害的还是普通消费者。