Goverment Increasing Plumbing Prices
Harmonization of GST & PST taxes

Personal letter from the owner Dave Francis:


Dear Friends & Neighbors,

For those of you who are not aware when you currently hire a plumber to fix things in your home the only tax you pay is the 5% GST for that service. But this may soon change.

The proposed tax changes are part of an aggressive move by Premier Dalton McGuinty to address the province’s financial shortcoming. Ontario officially became a poor cousin of Confederation this year, receiving payments under the national equalization program for the first time, and it is not at all clear whether Canada’s most populous province will ever reclaim its status as the country’s economic powerhouse.

The theory is that the harmonization would help the ailing province weather the recession by making businesses more competitive, because they could receive a refund for taxes paid on goods and services and other purchases to run their operations.

But as a business owner, I personally can't see the benefit when it going to hurt my customers financial ability to hire professional licensed tradesmen.

With hard financial times more and more people are turning to black market handymen who are not only NOT licensed, but they also do not contribute to our economy as they do not collect or pay taxes. This black market trade is illegal, but when times get tough the black markets grows and legitimate businesses close their doors in their inability to compete on price point alone.

It is bad enough that we've lost so many manufacturing jobs & call center jobs to overseas companies due to their cheaper labour, but now to take the remaining local service businesses and force them to charge more money to their customers - I just can't see any good coming from this at this critical economic point.

When times are tough and people are loosing jobs every day, you don't raise prices. This tax harmonization couldn't come at a worse time.

Unless this proposed tax change is stopped you can expect to be paying 13% tax on all future services in Ottawa before the end of the year.

Dave Francis
President
D.R. Francis Plumbing & Heating Ltd.
www.FrancisPlumbing.com

by Dave Francis - April 10, 2009

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