A lot of people are just getting emotional about it. Do people who sign those petitions really know anything about it other than so and so says it's bad. I see many c-lai signing up in rmd just because they heard from someone's frd that HST is bad.

On top of being dumbasses and not understanding the benefits, also think extremely short term and only see the obvious immediate downsides.

That's the thing about the HST, most ppl just jump to conclusions once they see that their restaurant bill is a bit more.

HST is a long term solution which will probably take 2-5 years but ppl just see the short term/immediate effects.

Where's the HST thread. Put that in there and make everyone read each other's comments on the HST. It's quite enjoyable.

HST was just implemented horribly wrong and had poor timing. but the HST itself is beneficial.

I personally have no problems with the HST as long as income tax is kept low, but if it is revenue neutral like they say it is why must they raise other taxes if it is scrapped?

I have no issue with the HST either, I just hated how it was dumped in the peoples' laps. I'd be completely for it if it was like 10%.

We should start a petition to SAVE THE HST!!!!!!!!


I dont understand people.....We want all the services that governments provide, but we bitch each and every time that a new tax is implemented or they talk about taxes going up. If we want services we need to pay for them. If we want to pay less taxes then we have to be ready to accept the lower services....Or people can just work smarter and make more money?

What will you do when they raise the HST to 15 or 20% ?

^ Imagine if they raised it to 50%!!! Then what would we do???? LOL WTF kinda comment was that!

To hate the HST itself because it is a new tax is not a worthy argument. To be upset over improper spending ect ect is a much more worth while conversation.

it's understandable to increase taxes, but i hate how the government tried to candy coat it and cover it up. This just shows that it was a cash grab after all.

Soon people are going to be moving out of BC for greener pastures.... oh wait, they already have.

What will you do when a meteor hits Earth, wiping out 99% of all lifeforms?

OMG THE HORROR!!

It's okay, we didn't need those people in the first place.

Except for the Olympic Village, which is a Vancouver city screw up, everything's been paid for. And it wasn't all BC money used to pay for the convention centre, Canada Line, etc either. Ottawa chipped in a good chunk, so did NBC and the other sponsors.. all money we wouldn't have seen, otherwise.

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But who sets the prices? Isn't it the merchants themselves? As far as I know, I thought the HST was always about saving businesses money and passing that savings to consumers.

Merchants not passing on savings -> less consumers because of extra tax -> merchants increase cost to cover the loss of number of consumers -> even less consumers

My parents run a business and love the HST. The customers eventually will love it too since the savings they get with HST will in turn make it that they dont need to raise prices for the next couple of years.
Most of the people that are bitching about HST either have no clue what they are talking about or are just thinking short term.

When most people compare pre-HST prices to post-HST prices, they tend to look at bigger box stores (Future Shop, Staples, HBC, etc). The problem with this is that chances are they wont notice these shops drop their prices because they're all set at a national level for all stores across Canada. The costs of having different levels of pricing and the printing of different fliers would eat into the savings, not to mention probably giving these companies AP and AR departments a headache.

If you want to see if prices change, look at local mom and pop stores or retail stores that are only based in BC

How do you know they're not passing on savings? What if they were about the raise the price of their goods, but decided not to thanks to HST?

Not only that, the HST will make BC a good market for investment. High taxes drive away businesses, and do you know what less businesses mean? Less competition, higher prices.

For fuck sake, people are crying about how the HST ruined everything when they were already paying 12% tax on fucking everything. The only part which you see a minor increase in is the restaurant industry.

$600 a month eating out = $42 extra a month. That equals $504 a year. And if you spend $600 a month eating out, you have no right to be bitching about how HST made you broke.

Just so you know, BC recently cut down its income tax rates for middle-class and lower families.

^^Ahh, that makes sense. I myself have been neutral about the HST. I feel that, people should at least take a look to see if the merchants are doing their part (passing on the savings), before everyone put all the blame on the person who brought HST in.

So, HST would (only?) work if we had a lot of local mom/pop stores and retail stores over national chain store? Because if BC's populated with large number national chain store, it wouldn't be economical for the company to adjust the price just for BC.

Although it hurts my family's wallet slightly, the carbon tax is sound policy.

Any science teacher/professor will tell you that there are way too many fucking cars on the road today. A lot of people who live 10 mins away from the station, still drive to Richmond even though they just opened a new Canada line.

I didn't say they aren't, I don't know myself either, I'm merely stating that if the HST didn't work out, people have to look at the businesses to see if they're actually passing on the savings before blaming the government.

A lot of people are complaining how HST has done nothing except but cost them more when they go out to eat. So why hasn't the HST deliver the savings (or has it?)? What went wrong? Was it because it wasn't logical for companies to adjust price just for BC, or the fact that businesses are actually keeping the savings to themselves?

I don't know the answer either, but I felt that that we could've given HST a bit more time before we judge it. It has only been what, not even half a year since it has been implemented?

Plus, most of the items at the retail level had no tax increase.

I like the HST system, as I own a small business and I no longer eat PST, but it sucks when I look at my sub-total as my money, and my quote, but the customer looks at the end price, and they at now 12% apart...and thats going to kill work, not increase it, so I can't lower prices because I now claim PST.

wasn't the HST revenue netreal??.... why would they need to increase other taxes if removed? are you saying they were lying :eek2:

You guys can agree with hst now, but they prob increase income taxes and pull some more taxes on our asses later on.