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.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Ontario HST Small Business Transition Support and Sales Tax Transition Benefit

Pretty boring stuff, however I have been asked a couple times by sole practitioners about the taxability of both the Ontario HST Small Business Transition Support and the Ontario Sales Tax Transition Benefit, so here it is.

The Ontario HST Small Business Transition Support payment going out to small businesses across Ontario is meant to provide assistance to small businesses with the transition to HST. This payment is for Ontario businesses with revenue of less then two million dollars for the most recent 12 month period ending after January 1, 2009 and is being sent out automatically. The maximum credit is .05% of revenue to a maximum amount of $1,000.

The Ontario HST Small Business Transition Support payment is taxable.

The Ontario Sales Tax Transition Benefit is meant to provide temporary relief to residents of Ontario to help them adjust to the HST. Ontario residents that qualify will receive three payments. The first payment was in June 2010. The next two payments are December 2010 and June 2011. The maximum benefit is $300 for single people and $1,000 for families. Single people lose their benefit if their income exceeds $82,000 and families lose their benefit if their income exceeds $166,700. The payments are sent out automatically when you file your 2009 and 2010 tax returns.

The Ontario Sales Tax Transition Benefit is not taxable.

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.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for putting this in ever day English.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your welcome. I try, but with income tax it is not always so easy to speak english; as you will see with my topic for tomorrow, I just kept trying to simplify but it still never made it to plain english. :(

    ReplyDelete