The Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) came into force in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland (now called Newfoundland and Labrador) in April 1997. The HST expanded to Ontario and British Columbia in July 2010, and has become far more complex. B.C. then withdrew from the HST in April 2013 and Prince Edward Island joined the HST system.

The HST uses the same legislation (Part IX of the Excise Tax Act) as the GST. Essentially the HST is just the GST at 13% or 15% instead of 5%. However, the HST (especially in Ontario) has additional complexities and hundreds of pages of new regulations which took effect July 1, 2010.

In my Canada GST Service commentary (1990-2019) and my annual book The Practitioner's Goods and Services Tax Annotated with Harmonized Sales Tax, as well as my twice-monthly GST Times (1991-2019), I have covered both the GST and the HST in detail. I have written extensive commentary on the new HST rules, which include new transitional rules, new place-of-supply rules, new point-of-sale rebates, new rules for housing rebates and dozens of other changes.

I have also done a substantial amount of work on behalf of clients, solving GST and HST problems and resolving disputes with the Canada Revenue Agency. Click here to read some "Magic" case histories.