If you’ve read or listened to the news at all, you know that the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) is on it’s way here in Ontario. The provincial government has announced that it intends to combine the eight percent Provincial sales Tax with the five percent federal Good and Services Tax, creating a thirteen percent HST.
The HST is not yet in effect. The provincial government has indicated that it intends to bring the HST into effect beginning on July 1, 2010, however there are transition rules in place. The HST will not apply on the purchase price of a resale home, but it will apply to services such as moving costs, legal fees, home inspection fees and Realtor® commissions. The HST will apply to the purchase price of newly constructed home however, the Province is proposing a rebate so that new homes across all price ranges would receive a seventy-five percent rebate of the provincial portion of the single sales tax on the first $400,000. For new homes under $400,000, this would mean, on average, no additional tax amount compared to the current system.
So it is important to remember that sales of resale residential housing and long-term rentals or residential housing will be exempt for HST purposes, but you will pay HST on the other services related to the sale or purchase of a house (real estate commissions, lawyer fees, moving services, home inspections, etc.)
Tags: bowmanville real estate, courtice real estate, Durham Region Real Estate, harmonization tax, home buying, home selling, house buying, oshawa real estate, whitby real estate
May 14th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
I thought I would let people know a great place to get the info on products and services that will be affected by the HST.
http://www.rev.gov.on.ca/en/taxchange/taxable.html