My name is Mark Goodfield. Welcome to The Blunt Bean Counter ™, a blog that shares my thoughts on income taxes, finance and the psychology of money. I am a Chartered Professional Accountant. This blog is meant for everyone, but in particular for high net worth individuals and owners of private corporations. My posts are blunt, opinionated and even have a twist of humour/sarcasm. You've been warned. Please note the blog posts are time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation or law.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Rock On

I will start today off with a prediction. Many Ontario businesses will be haunted by the introduction of the HST (“Harmonized Sales Tax”) over the next couple years when government HST audits are in full force. I say this because the HST does not appear to be well thought out. It was changing by the minute as the July 2010 deadline approached and most Ontario businesses look at the HST solely as an 8% increase in the GST (“Goods and Sales Tax”) from 5% to 13%.

The truth is, HST is a meshing of the GST, which was fairly well understood by most businesses, with Retail Sales Tax, which was never well understood by most businesses and many accountants. In my opinion, there will be havoc down the road with Sales Tax rules becoming embedded in the HST. I predict that place of supply and delivery rules, transitional billing rules and input tax credit restrictions will rear their ugly heads. The above is just a prediction based on my gut feeling, but I would be willing to bet that I will be proven correct.

Switching gears, I was listening to a rebroadcast of Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 (some FM stations & Sirus stations rebroadcast the original shows where Casey counted down the weekly top 40 – I personally enjoy the shows from the 70’s) and there was some talk about Tommy James. Tommy James performed, either solo, or with the Shondells, such hits as Draggin' the Line, Crimson and Clover, Crystal Blue Persuasion, Mony Mony and I Think We’re Alone Now. I was a little surprised by the number of hits he had produced so I Googled him. There are several sites on the net saying he should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That got me interested in finding out which artists are not in the Rock and Roll Hall of fame so I did some more surfing and some of those not in the Hall of Fame, in no particular order, are:

  • Tommy James
  • Deep Purple
  • Heart
  • Stevie Ray Vaughan
  • Procol Harum
  • Ohio Players
  • Rush
  • Chicago
  • Rufus and Chaka Khan
  • Moody Blues
  • Hall and Oates
  • Jethro Tull
  • Alice Cooper
  • Kiss
  • Linda Ronstadt
  • Steve Miller
  • Emerson Lake and Palmer
  • Boston
  • Rick James
  • Yes
The blogs posted on The Blunt Bean Counter provide information of a general nature. These posts should not be considered specific advice; as each reader's personal financial situation is unique and fact specific. Please contact a professional advisor prior to implementing or acting upon any of the information contained in one of the blogs.

1 comment:

  1. I can make a strong argument that two bands should make it into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame years before most, if not all, of the bands mentioned above:

    1) Joy Division - a band that bridged punk with new wave. A premature death of their lead singer, Ian Curtis, the day before they were to cross the pond from the UK to start their first American tour led to a short lived life as a band. The three remaining members went on to form New Order, a pioneer band in the new wave genre that lead to the second major music British Invasion. The influence of Joy Division on a number of post punk UK bands is massive.

    2) Kraftwerk - 4 guys and their computers. The true pioneers of electronic music. Producing hits in the seventies and into the new century. Their influence on electronic, new wave, sythn pop and dance music is huge.

    ReplyDelete