Vancity

Try again, old real guy. Since when is Vancity a chartered bank. Last I heard it was a credit union. Now go back to the books and tell us how much CORPORATE tax BMO or Royal or TD .... paid to BC last year.

@ snert

Of course your comment stands!

Unless you ask the moderators to remove it.

Like all the statements made about the HST and increasing employment; the HST being 'revenue neutral' and the like, it stands as part of the foul smell of hype, hypocrisy and mendacity that surrounds everything about this corporate give-away that coloured the latest example of BC Liberal bullshit.

@ realisticman

I assume you'll be winding up your business and filing for bankruptcy.

How did you ever get along prior to July 2010?

It Looks like a Bank. It act like a Bank.... I guess it's a Bank

HSBC Canada is headquartered in BC, munroe, and their annual report shows $210 million in taxes paid in 2010. The other banks you mention are not headquartered here so they file their taxes in the province they are headquartered, just as any other company does. I'm sure they pay lots of property taxes and PST/HST and all the employees they pay, pay taxes too. Why would they pay corporate tax to BC., just because they have branches here? Just because GM sells Chevys here in BC it doesn't mean that GM in Oshawa or Detroit pay corporate taxes to British Columbia.

Encouraging businesses to set up their head office in BC has many benefits. It also means that marketing departments, sales departments and regulatory departments, etc. follow. Creating work for many different industries and professions.

G West

The comment stands because neither you nor Mr Tieleman are any better than anyone else at predicting what this debacle is eventually going to cost the tax payer.

Trying to minimize your side of the argument by saying $300 million is, in effect, a drop in the bucket does not get you off the hook.

You might be right, who knows but that still doesn't make those costs any less real.

GWest

No. I might set up shop as an accountant though. There will be more work for that profession.

Realisticman

I believe you are part of the smart tax alliance, you sound like david robertson and I thought there could only be one as ignorant as he. I think your purpose is to get dialog and you have. People really do like an idiot, it makes the rest of us look good. Your comments on the yes side being morons was over the top and I can't forgive you for that. Keep up the good work and empty that cathater more often--I guess your 6 figure salary would allow you a large container!

As G. West Implies:

However did BC even exist before July 2010?

Come now Zalm, surely you

Come now Zalm, surely you wouldn't deny some poor investors a bit of "wealth creation".

After all, we need those corporations, especially the multinationals to "create jobs, jobs jobs"?

Or do they ? How many full time, well paid jobs has any of the banks, or major corporations "created" in the past years ?

No wonder our governments are bending backward to let them make more "earnings".

Like the RB CEO's $ 45. million in a year 2 or 3 years ago, when we were supposed to be in a recession, with millions unemployed.

Ed Deak. .

"BC less competitive than it was" - Fiat lux

I would like to personally applaud ED Deak's comment. - Well written

realisticman

Thousands? On billions in net earnings?

Your sense of proportion is missing. This is a rounding error.

Baloney R/Man

You need a new accountant apparently.

You say: "If I buy any tools or supplies for my business I should be entitled to a sales tax credit."

WHY?

The tools and or supplies are DEDUCUTIBLE COSTS used to determine the net cost of goods sold when determining any net profit you might have at the end of each fiscal year.

It you aren't including all the costs paid in determining the final amount to deduct in arriving at the cost of goods sold then you have an idiot for a cost accountant.

Furthermore, you can still apply for your God -Almighty input tax credit on the GST you paid for those tools and supplies - which I'm sure you know.

I thought you were an entrepreneur, willing to accept the cost of doing business in order to put your products before the public in a competitive marketplace.

I guess I was wrong, you're really a closet socialist who's actually afraid to accept the risks of playing businessman in the real world.

Suck it up - things, when Falcon and Ms Christy decide to actually revert to the old way of doing things, aren't going to make your life THAT difficult.

If you don't like the heat, you ought to get out of business. This jurisdiction has the lowest taxes in country - lower than any of the States in the US. If you can't make it here, you can't make it anywhere.

baloney is putting it lightly

R’man states;

"If I buy any tools or supplies for my business I should be entitled to a sales tax credit."

No you should not be entitled to a sales tax credit for things you use in business to produce goods.

If you purchase a tool or a supply for your business it is the one of the costs of doing business.

We just spent 3K on a piece of equipment for my business. I should then pay the HST amount as I am using that equipment to produce goods for sale.

Why should my clients pick up the tab for the HST @ 360.00? I would rather leave that money in their pockets and have them spend it in my shop on my goods for sale.

Here is another gem from R’man;

“If an employee of a large corporation or a government agency needs tools and supplies they are provided for them.”

This is completely misleading in the extreme. Employees don’t purchase tools and supplies. They work for an employer who purchases the tools and goods for their business and then has the employees use them for production work or repair work or whatever.

This is the agenda

we have in place today in BC…brought to you by one provincial liberal party…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

I think R/Man.......

.....is trying to emulate the late David Lewis's "Corporate Welfare Bums".....

Let's Get Really Realistic Man...

"...there will have to be cuts and adjustments..." unrealisticman

Hopefully, you are right... cuts to tax holidays and grants, plus increased taxation of the super-wealthy, and an end to the wasteful welfare/subsidy and assistance programmes to corporations.

What? Private capital won't then invest in the province? They'll leave to more lucrative offshore, playing to the downward spiral?

Good, says I. Then seize their assets, "democratize" them, and if we are going to provide public purse assistance to economic development, do so, to help a new order, democratic and co-operative economy get off the ground. Assist those who actually pay the taxes, are the majority consumer, and actually produce real, not "paper money" goods, and create and sustain real communities.

It's time this bullshit capitalist order was brought to an end anyway, and the way opened up to a future without this gangster "casino" class.

This is the kind of cost cutting, stolen wealth share recovery, and real social and economic adjustments benefiting the mass of the citizenry that are needed. The notion of rugged individualism, devil take the hindmost, get out of our way and let us do it capitalism has always been a myth anyway... certainly for a very, very long time. They have really always needed Capitalist State subsidies of one form or another to function and survive anyway. (It's only social programmes to the working class and its poor that they have really been against.)

Now, like Ed Deak says, the purpose of competition in the real world of capitalism is, the economic blood sport of eliminating competition, and creating out of control monopoly in its place.

Let's get really "realistic", man.

Jerry

Let's play "Corner The Market"!

The same old problem....

It's the same old problem with everything Bill writes. As an NDP insider, his writings are blatantly partisan. This isn't a balanced article, it's partisan attack.

Like the CCPA,I believe the concept of a single tax is inherently a good thing. Like the CCPA, I believe this particular single tax was bad in its implementation, both because it shifted tax from business to individuals and because the then premier lied to us before he put it in.

Fixing the tax would be much less expensive and much more productive. But attacking the tax is better politics. So, we're treated to the spectacle of the NDP (and Bill) arm in arm with with the likes of Van der Zalm and John Cummins. They grandstand, they mislead, they play the public anger like a fiddle and they cost us big.

Liberals, NDP, Bill Tieleman. A pox on all their houses.

Bill Tieleman & Bill Vanderzalm... Two Bills that will cost us.

There was a moment on the day of the referendum, when all over the province, a groan was heard. It was the collective citizens of BC suddenly stuck with another few years of switching taxes, going back to "Ol' Wasteful" PST that we finally released ourselves from the clutches of, only to find ourselves blasted backwards to it. Bill Vanderzalm at many times during the debate sounded like he was simply enjoying a public spectacle, and could care less what the topic really was, as can be seen in this quote: "When asked what sort of sales tax he would favour if he didn’t like the HST, Mr. Vander Zalm said to the group: “A VAT applied across the board.”" Apparently he was not aware at that time (halfway into the referendum) that the HST is a VAT tax that is applied evenly across the board. Next we have Bill Tieleman, who seems to want to appear as the most biased journalist in history, who constantly resorts to tactics best left at the sandbox in debates. I know that BC will have the HST permanently at some point in the not-so-distant future. It is only a matter of time.

PeterProHST

Could you provide an actual reference for that supposed quotation from Vanderzalm?

I believe it comes from a very questionable source - to wit, Jason Myers of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association. Hardly a disinterested interlocutor.

So far as I know, I've never actually seen that statement attributed to Bill Vanderzalm in any kind of a detailed context and, just as you've done above, it has only been repeated in the truncated and highly suspect form you provide above here.

In fact, I don't think I've read about that quote from ANY first person journalist who claims to have heard, recorded or transcribed the statement (in its original context) him or her self.

In fact, a great many of the countries where there is an operating VAT system have very different taxation regimes than BC does.

We already have the lowest corporation tax (tied with Alberta) in any province - or any State in the USA - the suggestion that the move to the HST (which shifted even more tax burden from corporations onto consumers) was a progressive taxation move is a slander and a prevarication of the first order.

What ought to be 'only a matter of time' is a move to some real taxation reform.

You should read up on it pete...instead of casting aspersions upon people like Tieleman and Vanderzalm who aren't afraid to post their real names behind their public efforts.

a disinterested interlocutor

"Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters

CANADA'S LARGEST TRADE AND INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION"

They've only been around for 140 years.

A bit longer than even Vanderzalm.

Oh really r/man

Did you actually 'read' what I posted?

A truncated third party "quotation" lifted out of context from something a 'Jason Myers' is "alleged to have heard" doesn't even 'rise' to the level of a rumour. Even someone with your challenged sense of fairness should know that.

In fact, if you'd taken the trouble to research our little friend's assertion, you'd find out that Google comes up with a grand total of 5 references - none of them primary and, in fact, references 2 - 5 are circular in that they quote reference 1 - a story from the business pages of the Globe and Mail in which Tony Wilson quotes the single, again out of context and un-attributed source, Jason Myers.

You now seem to suggest that Mr Myers is credible because an organization he's been associated with is 140 years old.

You must be joking.

I don't know what Vanderzalm said at this alleged meeting (which took place at an unknown time and place) and I'd suggest you don't either.

If you want to believe in fairy tales - so be it.

But if you want to make a case for ANYTHING you're going to have to do it in a more convincing fashion than you and petey- pro have done.

Say what you like about Tieleman and the Zalm, they did make their case and won the day.

Thanks!

Thank you West and your close friends, Delaney and Bill Vanderzalm for ensuring that our Big Macs, our Double-Doubles and our haircuts will again be tax free.

Thanks!

Thank you, Realisticman, for being the voice of unreasoning bluster, so much so that fair-minded people who held their noses and voted Fiberal last time can do so no longer, and are giving the BC Conservatives a real shot at forming a proper, honest, reasoned right-wing alternative to the "anybody-but-the-commies" idiocy that kept the Fiberals in power for the past decade.

Now, the NDP will have the privilege of figuring a way out of this taxation morass. And if we start the conversation now - a real conversation, not the waterfall of innuendo and half-truths that you have been accustomed to parroting from the Fiberals' website - we may actually come up with some good ideas that actually benefit all British Columbians without harming so many in the process.

And if that's a conversation you're not up to having, well, we'll be happy to see your backside on the road to Calgary where you may well be much more at home.

Or maybe not. You struck me as not having sold your conscience yet.

Bill Teileman - You can tell them the truth now

You've won the battle, to the detriment of the province in the opinion of every serious economist, but victory is yours none the less.
So, now's the time to stop treating your constituents like children. You now can stop making the fraudulent statement:
"The HST is an enormous tax shift taking $2 billion a year paid primarily by big business and putting it onto ordinary taxpayers."

You've convinced your constituents that corporations such as Walmart when working on calculating a markup include wages, licenses, property taxes etc, etc, but then say "but we'll make the Walton family pay the PST"
A large construction company places a billion dollar bid based on its costs but says "we'll ingore the PST and get our owners to pay those costs".
That is childish to an extreme.

WHAT? .... "of every serious economist."

That, John Corman, is categorically untrue.

There are plenty of economists who do not share your religious belief in the virtues of the Campbell Government's Tax plan.

Furthermore, the statement of Tieleman's you cite is hardly inaccurate except in the sense that the amount involved was always billed as $1.9 billion and not $2, remember? You really want to call Tieleman a liar of epic proportions for that?

In fact, if you'd take the time to do the necessary research you would find that the figure of $1.9 billion is PRECISELY the amount that the Business Council of British Columbia cites as the 'cost' to business of maintaining the PST in this province.

So you want to watch who you're calling a liar - Also, unlike some individuals I can name, I can back up my statements with facts John.

Here, I'll cite the exact 'money' quote for you: "Despite some exemptions for business, BC's RST (retail sales tax) nevertheless imposes a $1,9 billion burden on business inputs including investment goods, which represents nearly 40% of the tax's $5 billion annual revenues" (from the Business Council of British Columbia: Policy Perspectives, Vol.17, No 2, April 2010.)

Under the HST business pays NO SALES TAX AT ALL - so the burden is, by definition, taken up by consumers (who are, again by definition, taxpayers).

I think Tieleman's on pretty solid ground and someone else around here is acting like a sore loser.

But keep trying - you might want to consider emigrating to Denmark - I understand they have a new 'socialist' government there.

Cheers.

For Adults Only.

"But consumption taxes are regressive!

This is a frustrating state of affairs for an economist who would like to see governments do more to reduce poverty and inequality. Outside Canada, it is generally accepted that high VAT rates are an essential component of social policy: see the accompanying graph. Of the 21 OECD countries that spend more on social programs than does Canada, 19 have higher VAT rates. There are no rich countries that have pulled off the trick of sustaining high levels of social spending with low VAT rates. ..." (Then the chart showing the rates)

and this is really only for adults.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/stephen-gordon/its-time-for-an-adult-discussion-about-hstgst/article2168428/

"WHY?"

This was a question asked by West about why a business should get a tax relief for supplies. What this commenter doesn't understand is that by not giving the 'business' the tax relief the cost of the item at the end of the chain is higher for the consumer!

Because they think they are taxing someone/something that is perceived to have money, namely a 'business', they are causing inflation. Everything will increase in price for the wealthy and for everyone else too.

It would be simpler and more equitable to tax the individuals that own the companies, rather than the abstract small business 'companies' these people operate. The HST doesn't leave money in the businessman's pocket, it leaves it in the company's account, where it can be used to hire more employees, or expand operations, and, of course, it can be used on balance to lower ultimate prices of goods or services, since the business in more readily "in the black".

Lower prices for consumers, less inflation. Less bureaucracy and accounting work for companies, big and small.

All because, as we still keep on hearing, it was "Gordon Campbell's Tax". These clan battles and grudges can go on for a long, long time. It's a bit like the Balkans. Meanwhile, the little guy gets hurt.

Outside Canada

Outside Canada VALUE ADDED TAXES are an important part of a socially responsible taxation regime when they are combined with much higher rates of tax on upper income earners and much lower levels at which the top marginal rates come into force.
You know this realisticman - why do you persist in claiming that the HST in BC is anything like the situation in other countries?
The suggestion that VAT is socially responsible in a country like Canada where such analysts as the Conference Board have shown comprehensively that the top quartile of taxpayers in this country have gotten all the gains of the past 20 years while the lower and middle classes have stagnated.
As for the suggestion that the HST was a 'real' VAT with the objective of 'increasing' spending on social programs - this is, pure and simple, a lie.
The authors of the tax, as everyone with an ounce of perception and honesty, SOLD THE DAMN THING AS REVENUE NEUTRAL. Again, you know this is true – but you dishonestly refuse to acknowledge that reality. WHY?
How anyone on this news site can post the suggestion that the HST was a socially responsible action by a government that has already cut corporate taxes to the lowest either Canada or the US is incomprehensible.
It was, and is, as evidenced by the mendacious statements of the industry groups that supported it, NOTHING BUT ANOTHER GORDON CAMPBELL REACH AROUND TO HIS CORPORATE ENABLERS.
Suggesting anything else in the context of the record is, simply, stupid.
As for the suggestion that the HST resulted - or would ever result in lower prices to the consumer - there is no empirical evidence - anywhere - that the addition of consumer taxes HAS EVER RESULTED IN A DROP IN COSTS.
As for the suggestion that British Columbia has done anything positive in terms of social spending for the last qo years - YOU MUST BE KIDDING.
British Columbia is at or near the bottom of every empirical measure of responsible social spending in this country.

By the way

If companies have NO MONEY - they will not be in business very long realisticman.

AND, if they can't manage to make a profit in the lowest tax environment in this country then the additional $1.9 billion per annum provided by the HST will not save them - they are already on life support.

Perhaps you should re-locate to California where the top marginal coporation rate is more than 40%.

You might like it better there.

As for here - cry me a river.

You've had a free ride too long now!

When do the lies stop?

It is pretty clear from skimming through the above posts again that the side which lost the referendum really would like to have the floor all to themselves now to perpetuate the notion that the winning side just didn't know what they were doing. They object to Bill countering the often repeated myth about how we are all deep doodoo now. It sounds like a way of getting some support for the liars who tried to sell us the HST in the first place. They know that if they don't try to salvage something from the loss of the HST then Christy Clark is next to go. Strange, I don't hear anyone buying the new myth either.

John Corman wants everyone to shut up now that it is over. Well if it is over, you sure wouldn't know it by all the fear mongering the losers are engaging in. I rather think Bill and all the rest need to keep poking holes in the balloons floated by the BC Liberals to justify their deceit or to try and paint a picture that the end would have justified the lying.

We need to expose the lies before HST and the lies about the dire consequences after.

realisticman - another point

You stated:
"There are no rich countries that have pulled off the trick of sustaining high levels of social spending with low VAT rates. ..."
You could add that the successful countries have chosen to implement low corporate tax rates and attempted to not tax their exports.

I will acknowledge that some industries have to "eat" the PST. Those are the ones that have no control over the prices of their products. Even though the forestry, mining, oil and natural gas companies are exempt from PST on their equipment there is still tax that they have to absorb.

Very few jurisdictions see any rational purpose in taxing exports. Except some people in BC, obviously.

There are very few countries

There are very few countries that have pulled off the even more difficult trick of sustaining high levels of social spending without high marginal rates of income tax which cut in at fairly low multiples of the average industrial wage.

Canada and the United States are absolutely gilt edged examples of what happens when you decide to cut taxes to high income earners and corporations.

It's too bad that the right wingers around here are so incapable of actually competing that they need to be propped up by the government.

Instead of helping the Porsche buyers and worrying about their welfare John, you should have a look around you at what's happening on the streets of Nanaimo. Not a lot of your fellow citizens can afford to eat at Wesley Street.

If your corporate buddies can't survive in the lowest tax jurisdiction in Canada or the UNITED STATES maybe they should just fold their tents and apply for welfare.

If they can't make it in BC they can't make it anywhere.

Wot???

"Very few jurisdictions see any rational purpose in taxing exports."

Name one!

I can name one that believes we should tax our exports - the US! They insist we tax our lumber stock fairly (get a proper stumpage for it rather than the floating rate of $0.25 to $4.00 per cubic metre) so that their mills can compete.

No matter how many times we win at the panel, the US insists we should be taxing our raw logs and finished lumber more so that their mills can stay in business

Actually, I kind of tend to agree with them, but who am I? Nobody, obviously....

No, I insist that exports, particularly of raw materials, be taxed, as high as the market will allow. Manufactured goods, not so much. Intellectual property not at all.

Exporting raw materials means Canadians lose out on the chance to add value to the material and earn value for themselves, in favour of a low-wage, low-regulation regime with a muddy legal system, no effective regulation for polloution, wste or business practices, astounding cronyism, and levels of inequity that would stop your heart if you actually had to live there among it.

Failure to tax raw exports to such a regime acts like an unofficial subsidy to bad manufacturing practices, and I can't for the life of me see how anyone can defend that. No, we must tax the shit out of copper concentrate, raw logs, low-value dimension lumber, unrefined crude, and any of a number of things most of you could probably think of in an instant.

No

It wasn't revenue neutral, initial estimates were wrong, so the government said they would lower it by 2% - almost by 30%.

Where dos this come from?
Tieleman:
"Remember, Prime Minister Stephen Harper didn't give the $1.6 billion because he loves B.C. -- it was a massive bribe that would have paid off in spades with increased federal revenues forevermore.

Federal governments don't just give away money to provinces for free -- there's always a price."

Where would the extra revenue for the federal government come from? Don't say the PST component. That goes back to the province. The federal GST component stays the same.

zalm

I commend you on your insight.

"No, I insist that exports, particularly of raw materials, be taxed, as high as the market will allow."

That's the way the world market works. Price goes too high, nobody buys and price goes down. Price is low and demand is high, everyone buys, price rises.

So r/man

We have another interesting admission - the lowest taxed corporate entities in the country (or in the USA) needed more help to stay in business.

Nice to have that out isn't it?

Like I said, you guys need to get out of business - if you can't hack it in the mose business friendly jurisdiction available without a reach around fron Gordon Campbell - you should retire or go on welfare.

Now I know why you hate real socialism - because you LOVE the kind of socialism that keys its policies on the Business Council of BC.

A nice admission on your part - but, all in all, kind of pathetic from a so-called free enterpriser.

Are you blushing yet?

talk about 'blushing' that - should be...

Like I said, you guys need to get out of business - if you can't hack it in the most business friendly jurisdiction available without a reach around from Gordon Campbell - you should retire or go on welfare.

All other considerations aside...

When a government program falls as the HST did, the government has an obligation to go to the polls. That is just my opinion. It was a scandalous deed, done by a former premier, but the present administration should be replaced.
The cost is unthinkable.

More falcon Foolishness

On Wednesday (Sep. 21), BC's Finance Minister announced another foolish falconism - an independent panel of tax experts. This will be as independent as the BC Liberals' panel of 'independent' HST experts. This is how the Liberals hide their pro-corporate agenda - behind paid pro-corporate experts, like Jack Mintz, who can create 100,000 new jobs at the drop of a $50,000 consulting fee in his lap.
Once again, Foolish Falcon thinks our primary goal is to appeal to the most flighty, greedy bunch of parasites in the world: "foreign investors". Does this guy get a commission from Goldman-Sachs?

Hear, hear!

Great article, Bill!

The money is only the start of it

$1.6 billion bribe from Ottawa to approve the tax, plus the cost of the referendum and the cost of the switching back.

The credibility of the former premier was lost and so was that of the entire Liberal Party. But who was surprised when Campbell reneged on his firm position to halt the hated tax?

Personally, I think the old PST system was a minefield so complex no one could one ever master it completely. Even the big box stores could not get it right. The people of BC have proven that they have no sense of direction.

We have just proven to the world that this is a lousy place to do business, because you can't rely on anything or anybody here. It can all change overnight and money is a coward.

The bottom line is, I don't think the tax will be reversed. The gnomes under the BC legislature will not allow it. That is who is running the province.