HST is a Money-grab against the Poor

I haven’t written about news happening at the local front for a while, but this following piece of news REALLY disturbs me:

Vancouver Sun: BC to Harmonize Sales Tax at 12% Next July

Finance Minister Colin Hansen (left) announced today (Thursday, July 23, 2009) that the B.C. Government will combine the federal GST and the provincial PST into one combined sales tax, the harmonized sales tax (HST) starting in July of 2010. Hansen cites that the existing two-sales-tax system is causing businesses a lot of extra accounting work that is bad for business. He estimates that the harmonization process would save businesses 1.9 billion dollars.

What Hansen did not say is the harmonization’s effects on the poor, which prompted me to write the following to all the local newspaper immediately upon hearing this news:

“The BC Government’s proposed plan to “harmonize” the GST and PST into the HST appears on the surface to be a move to promote business. In essence, it is a despicable scheme to take the money away from the poor to pour it into the pockets of the rich. Currently, the poorest of BC’s residents rarely have to pay a sales tax for the province – they do not buy electronics, cars, luxurious vacations, and the like. Groceries, school supplies are among the items that are PST-exempt. By harmonizing the federal and the provincial sale taxes, they would now have to pay an additional 7% when they buy their food, or a set of pencils for their children. Big corporations are ALREADY paying their accountants to handle both the GST and PST; grass-root citizens cannot afford to pay a NEW extra 7% for their life’s essentials, and that is the bottom-line that Mr. Campbell’s government is once again ignoring.”

If enough people are crying foul, I have a feeling the BC Liberals will propose a rebate system where the poor can get some money back for the extra taxes they have to pay on their everyday essentials. However, even if that rebate is a full-scale rebate that covers all of their expenses, it does not take into the account that grass-root citizens are living from pay-cheque to pay-cheque, and cannot really afford to pay that tax up front. Without a choice, people with the lowest income may have to buy less food, live in poorer conditions, and have fewer essential items such as stationary products for school-aged children.

Even with best intentions, it is not difficult to see that the BC Liberal government has its policies catered towards the rich at the expense of the poor. I do not classify myself as a political socialist (far from it, actually), but this repeated oppression of the poor is just despicable.