Tax Memo: British Columbia Sales Tax Harmonization

On July 23, 2009, Premier Gordon Campbell and Finance Minister Colin Hansen announced that the province of BC intends to harmonize its provincial sales tax (PST) with the federal goods and services tax (GST) on July 1, 2010. This announcement follows Ontario’s announcement on March 26, 2009, to harmonize its PST with the GST. The new single sales tax rate for the BC value added tax (BCVAT) will be 12%. However, the BC and Canadian federal governments agreed that two years after the implementation date, BC can increase or decrease the BCVAT rate.

Administered by the Canada Revenue Agency, the BCVAT will follow many of the underlying concepts of the GST and adopt many of the customizations introduced by Ontario. Nevertheless, the BCVAT will have some BC-specific elements as described in the Tax Memo below.

Tax Memo: British Columbia Sales Tax Harmonization: Overview (92 KB) Download the full PDF Tax Memo.