Neal Winokur: Time to end the tax on tax

Check your receipt next time you fill up. GST/HST is charged on the total price you pay to fill up.Norbert Millauer/AFP/Getty Images files

For example, GST/HST should be charged on the price of the actual gas, not the additional one-third the government charges us as fuel taxes

Like most Canadians, I don’t enjoy paying my bills every month. But what particularly frustrates me is the tax on tax we pay in some of our bills.

Every month when I pay my utility bill, I become filled with rage and madness. Like most accountants, one hopes, I actually look at my bills in detail. My gas bill consists of a “customer charge,” “delivery to you,” “transportation to (my supplier),” “federal carbon charge,” “gas supply charges,” plus a tiny “cost adjustment” credit. All of these are added up as the total “charges for natural gas.”

And then the unthinkable happens.

HST is charged on the total amount.

This is infuriating.

The “federal carbon charge” is the carbon tax. This is a tax. When debate about the carbon tax occurred in Parliament, some Liberals preferred to call it a “market pricing mechanism.” Whatever Orwellian terms the government can come up with to describe the federal carbon-charge-market-pricing-mechanism, it is a tax being levied by the government, no different than the income tax or the GST/HST.

How can our government possibly think it’s a good idea to calculate GST/HST on the total bill, including the carbon tax? This is a clear example of a tax on a tax. It’s an insult to the intelligence of the Canadian people to be charging us tax on tax.

The HST, like the GST, is a “goods and services tax.” The HST should only be charged on actual goods and services that we purchase. The GST/HST should not be charged on other taxes!

I emailed my member of the provincial parliament, the Ontario minister of finance and the premier of Ontario’s office about this issue. They responded by telling me they understand my concern but the HST is administered by the federal government and there’s nothing they can do about it.

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Source: Neal Winokur | Financial Post