In our last newsletter, CARP ActionOnline we asked readers to weigh in on the decision by the provincial governments of B.C and Ontario to implement a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) in 2010. The results are in and most polls respondents don’t believe that the tax credits will be sufficient to offset the tax increase created by the HST and 85.4% of them don’t believe that businesses will pass through their savings to consumers. We gave politicians and by-election candidates in B.C. and Ontario the opportunity to comment on the results of our poll. Here are the responses we received by press time:

Like 85.4% of CARP members who answered your poll, the Ontario New Democratic Party does not believe that businesses will pass on the eventual savings they make through the HST to consumers.

As the NDP candidate in the St. Paul’s by-election, I firmly believe that the HST is the wrong tax at the wrong time. Every time you pay your hydro bill, your rent, and so many other everyday essentials, the HST will cost you money. Yet the Liberal government will not invest more money into improving the public services that CARP members so desperately need – there will be no additional health care or public transit as a result of this new tax.

Instead, with your money, Dalton McGuinty will give profitable corporations a $4.5 billion tax cut. In these tough economic times, the HST is a tax you can’t afford.

Julian Heller, NDP, St-Paul’s

Keywords: HST