Do you have to make other Canadians pay the PST rate that THEY live in? or is it based on where YOU, the seller, lives? Also if you make a sale to a person outside of Canada, do they have to pay GST?
If they reside in your province you obey your provinces' tax laws. (PST/HST) If you and they reside in Canada but not in same province - GST only... you can't collect and remit tax for other provinces unless you also have a provincial account there.
I think if you are selling to people in USA/Mexico none because of NAFTA. Not 100% sure though. And that only happens if you're selling 'Made in Canada' stuff.
I agree with fathom. I think after you reach a certain point moneywise you have to collect GST in Canada but don't have to collect PST unless you have a retail tax ID#. If you do have a retail tax ID you collect according to the province your client lives in. Those who collect it need a gst & pst # so they can collect and remit. Most companies that charge GST put their GST# on their invoice.
While there is legislation being developed in Canada and USA to combat lost taxation revenue - there isn't anything yet. Business taxation is base on where you do business not where the customer uses your services from. If you need to ship something customs will get involved but that isn't a tax issue... you can only tax Canadians and charge provincial taxes to people that resides in province. The exception to this is tourisms related businesses because the person of another country visited this one. An afterthrought.... if you collected taxes from them; they can remit a claim get that tax money back - which notes it you did collect it - you should remit it yourself because the government won't accept a loss... they'll track it down.
It would be best to contact the CRA. They can actually be surprisingly helpful... I had a small business and they explained us pretty well at the time. Of course, I forgot pretty much everything... ;-) But I think I remember something about not charging the GST if you make under a certain amount per year,
PST would apply really to whatever province you live in and IF the customer lives there as well. If you live in Ontario, on your order page have a script that adds PST automatically if they fill in the form as living in Ontario. They cannot lie about this because you will (hopefully) have a shopping cart that matches up addresses with credit cards. Terri