From approximately 85 percent at the height of the period during which signatures calling for the HST referendum were collected, to the latest figure of 54 percent, anti-HST sentiment is plummeting.
British Columbians are thinking twice. Some have privately told me of regret for having signed the petition calling for the referendum, or for having too hastily judged the value of the tax.
British Columbians are signalling it was the process, not the tax, that so stoked their anger.
I am glad to see the change in these numbers. I support a taxation policy that favours taxing consumption rather than putting a price on enterprising activity, i.e., taxing earnings or income.
Provided voters get enough credible information about the HST prior to the referendum for them to make an informed choice, I suspect the referendum will fail.
The changing numbers regarding the HST could play a role in the BC leadership race. Kevin Falcon says he will reduce the tax from 12 percent, to 11, then ten percent. Mike de Jong wants to keep the tax at the current rate and favours the type of taxation policy that I do. George Abbott says he supports the tax and has not signalled anything with respect to reducing it; same also with Dr. Moira Stilwell.
Christy Clark... Well, who knows what her position is on the HST? She says she supports it and would like MLAs to vote on it. Would that be in its present form, or changed? Conveniently, not being a MLA herself, Clark would avoid the vote.
[Cross-posted at Challenging the Commonplace]
2 comments:
Actually, the HST screwed my mother-in-laws best friend out of 15 thousand dollars when she sold her last home. She was looking to move into a retirement home and already had to sell her house at a reduced rate because of the poor shape of the economy. She got double dinged by the HST. It's a shame.
There is no HST applied in BC to the prices of resale homes. It is only applied to real estate fees, which were already subject to the five percent GST.
In other words, your mother-in-law's friend would have paid an additional seven percent on the real estate fee only. If, as she claims, she paid $15,000 more than she'd have paid otherwise, then we can calculate that the real estate fee alone was $214,285.71.
Real estate fees are traditionally set at six percent. Assuming that's correct in this case, the house sold for $3,571,428.50.
Given the writers of this blog have annual household incomes of $10,000, there are no tears being shed here.
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