In an effort to ease the transition back to the PST, the province is providing businesses with free seminars, webinars, online and mailed-out information and one-on-one consultations with tax specialists.
The new tools, announced in mid-October, are being welcomed by tax specialists.
Gabrielle Lorenis a partner and certified general accountant with Loren, Nancke & Co. She recently delivered a seminar for Small Business BCon preparing for the PST’s return.
She applauded the government’s efforts in general and its provision of tax experts to answer questions from businesses in particular.
“That blew me away,” she told Business in Vancouver. “Usually everything falls upon the accountants and the lawyers to answer all the questions.”
She added that the transition rules are being better communicated than they were when the PST/GST was replaced with HST.
“It’s a lot easier than transitioning to the HST because a lot of people had questions [then] and didn’t know where to go.”
The province says it has mailed out transition information to more than 160,000 businesses across the province and posted transition information online.
To respond to questions, the government is providing:
•one-on-one consultations with tax specialists, available through www.PSTinBC.ca;
•a toll-free number (1-877-388-4440) for businesses to call; and
•email responses to queries sent to the [email protected] email address.
The government said it will be providing webinars and in-person seminars in the run-up to the April 1, 2013, tax transition date.
The province has also announced a new “eTaxBC” service. Available as of January 2, it will allow businesses to register for PST, file returns and pay online.
“As committed, the PST is being re-implemented on April 1, 2013, with all permanent exemptions,” the government stated, noting that consumers will pay PST only on goods and services that were previously taxed.
“Consumers will again not pay PST on purchases like food, restaurant meals, bicycles, gym memberships, movie tickets and others, nor for personal services like haircuts.”
Loren said the biggest question she gets about the return to PST is whether businesses can minimize their taxes before the transition.
Loren said the answer is “yes, absolutely.”
“If your business is registered for HST, you want to make any big-ticket purchases now before the transition happens as opposed to waiting until after April 1.”
Beyond that, Loren said, businesses simply need to register for a PST number.
