Waste your life understanding the GST
The Canada Revenue Agency released an update of their regulations concerning the purchase of Basic Groceries so you know exactly what is charged GST and what is not.
I am convinced that as soon as you start introducing exclusions (or inclusions) to any sort of tax, the result of such actions will result in documents like the one I linked to above.
It’s best to keep tax systems simple, otherwise over time there will be enough complexity layered into things that will require the creation and maintenance of six million rules, of which nobody will have total comprehension of. One doesn’t need to look further than the income tax act as the prime example.
For example, have you ever wondered why buying a single doughnut at Tim Hortons results in a GST charge while buying a half dozen doesn’t? Read no further than the following paragraph:
87. Supplies of cakes, muffins, pies, pastries, tarts, cookies, doughnuts, brownies, croissants with sweetened filling or coating, or similar products are taxable where:
* they are pre-packaged for sale to consumers in quantities of less than six items each of which is a single serving, or
* they are not pre-packaged for sale to consumers and are sold as single servings in quantities of less than six.
And if you were ever wondering what the Canada Revenue Agency considered to be a “single serving”, you have the following:
89. For GST/HST purposes, a single serving is a serving of cake, pie, muffin, pastry, tart, cookie, doughnut, brownie, croissant with sweetened filling or coating or a similar product weighing less than 230 grams or a portion or part of a good under paragraph 1(m) when offered for sale as a single serving.
Isn’t bureaucracy grand? So anytime you go to a bakery, just ask for a 230 gram cookie, not a 229 gram cookie, otherwise they’ll charge you GST.