Small businesses seek federal help ahead of holiday GST break

Parties are debating in Ottawa over the Liberal government’s legislation for a two-month GST holiday on a variety of items over the holidays.

The Liberal government introduced Bill C-78 Wednesday afternoon, proposing a two-month tax break for certain goods and services starting Dec. 14.

If passed, the tax break will apply to restaurant meals, snacks, prepared foods, children’s toys, car seats, books, print newspapers, puzzles and holiday trees among other items.

The promised rebate cheque of $250 expected to be distributed in the spring is not included in the proposed bill.

Some small businesses are concerned about the added costs of implementing the tax break, saying there will be a lot of work to adjust payment systems and to update inventories in time for the break.

Small businesses to put lots of time, effort to make tax break work
Owner of Citizen Kid on Locke Street in Hamilton Rebecca Bamford says implementing the tax break will be challenging, “the government doesn’t seem to have a clear plan for business owners.”

Bamford says going through inventory and changing the point of sale machines to reflect the tax break will be the biggest challenge.

“We have online sales and have in-store sales. We’ll have to shut down our website for a period of time to do all this administrative stuff,” she said.

Manager of Local Life on Locke Street Krystal Lacelle says that while adjusting to the tax break will be challenging, they hope it will bring in more customers despite the extra work.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) wants the federal government to help cover the costs of changing their systems.

Director of Agrifood Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University Dr. Sylvain Charlebois says the tax break would see more benefits if it became a permanent one.

“Especially for grocers they tend to carry 2,000 different products, about 4,600 are taxed to decode the system and recode them a few months later, is a lot of work,” said Charlebois.