BC Premier Gordon Campbell and Finance Minister Colin Hansen announced yesterday that British Columbia will follow in the footsteps of Ontario in adopting a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) as of July 1, 2010.

The Provincial governments are adopting the HST in an effort to boost major cost savings for businesses which will be able to claim HST rebates in almost all cases.

It is estimated that once the HST is fully implemented it will reduce sales taxes paid by businesses by as much as $1.9-billion and save over $150-million in administrative costs for companies.

The savings introduced due to the HST may however increase taxes paid by consumers.  Certain basic goods will be HST exempt, such as basic food items, children’s clothing and shoes, diapers, car seats feminine hygiene products and books, but a large portion of services previously not subject to PST will now be HST taxable such as restaurant meals, haircuts as well as real estate purchases.

With these new changes to our provincial tax structure imminent, is your Point of Sale Software ready to handle HST?

AmberPOS Point of Sale Software will be able to seamlessly switch over and integrate the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) when the changes take effect next July for both the front end modules such as invoicing of customers as well as the back-end modules such as inventory management, purchase ordering as well as reporting.

Identifying HST taxable goods and services and separating them from non-taxable goods and services will be a breeze with our fully integrated custom tax module, which will make it easier to handle a seamless switch over and provide accurate and timely reporting for the new HST.

For a free consultation on how upgrading to AmberPOS can help to make sure your retail store will have a smooth transition to being HST ready in the coming year, please contact us today.

* Source:  Globe and Mail