Area businesses benefit from HST Seminar
Area Businesses Benefit from Manitouwadge HST Seminar
by Karina Hunter
Submitted photo.
Monday, June 7th a full house packed Township of Manitouwadge Council Chambers as service organizations representatives and business owners, having come from as far as Dubreuilville, attended an HST Information Seminar at the Township offices. There have been numerous seminars such as these during past months but it seems, with the effective date of HST transition quickly nearing, businesses are scrambling to get as much information as possible to ensure they are prepared for the change.
Betty Lou Lachapelle, Field Services Offiicer with the Ontario Ministry of Revenue and Ken Kemp, Thunder Bay Tax Services Office (Canada Revenue Agency)r eviewed the many aspects of the new Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) which comes into effect as of July 1st, 2010. Elaborating on pros and cons of how the new Harmonized Sales Tax wound affect those in attendance and providing real-world examples of how the transition from G.S.T.+ P.S.T. to H.S.T. should be dealt with vis-à-vis sales; details of the transition period which began May 1st and continues through the end of this month; and much more, the seminar was very thorough continuing for nearly 2 hrs before it wrapped up with a brief question period.
Luc Levesque, business owner and Town Councilor from Dubreuilville who traveled to attend the session, believes the H.S.T. will prove to be quite beneficial to businesses “Hearing about different ways businesses will benefit from the HST implementation; reduction of compliance costs and embedded taxes in supplier prices as well input tax credits that many businesses will receive for sales tax paid on their business inputs and capital investments, it sounds like this will be a positive change,” said Levesque recalling some of the evening’s information. He seemed hopeful that the changes would be beneficial adding that “For my own business it seems it will simplify the process with one set of forms, one payment and one point of contact for audits, appeals and tax services.” In fact predictions are that businesses will save in excess of $500 million in administrative and compliance costs through the HST implementation and the elimination of the many complex RST rules that vendors currently faced will result in further direct benefits as well.
“Manitouwadge businesses were very well represented, from our largest Employer Manroc, to the smallest a home-based Mary-Kay Cosmetic Distributor and everything in between; 49 participants total. We were also happy to welcome out of town participants.” said Economic Development Administration Assistant Karen Robinson, adding that “Going forward, we feel local businesses are well equipped to handle the changes ahead and we thank Betty Lou Lachapelle and Ken Kemp for bringing us this important session. We are very pleased with how everything went.”.
If you are a business owner or interested resident who was unable to attend either the Manitouwadge seminar or the similar information sessions which had been held in White River and Marathon earlier in April and May, call the Minister of Revenue’s Client Accounts and Services Branch at 1-866-668-8297 for more information regarding how the HST transition will affect you.
