Recovering Harmonized (HST) with Expense Report Software.

Recovering Canadian HST Tax can be a complicated and expensive process. So much so that many small to medium sized businesses leave money on the table and recover only a percentage of what they are due.

GST, PST or HST?- While most Canadian business GST-Governmental Sales Tax owners know the difference between GST, PST and PST-Provincial Sales Tax HST, it can become quite confusing when it comes to HST-Harmonized Sales Tax, or managing your business’s tax burden. Essentially, the blended tax rates of GST GST is the Canadian Government’s 5% sales tax and PST levied on all products and services. PST, or Provincial Sales Tax is a tax added to the GST by individual Provinces. When the PST is blended into the GST, the result is HST, or Harmonized Sales Tax.

Why All the Confusion?- Province GST or HST Current Rate While all of has the HST 13% British HST 12% same 5% GST, PST can and Columbia does change from Province to New HST 13% Province. Add to this the fact Brunswick that Canadian territories do not Newfoundland HST 13% have a PST or an HST. and Labrador HST 15% Others GST 5% Do All Canadian Business Need to Register for GST?- Now it gets a bit more confusing. A business does not need to register for GST if they only provide and offer GST exempt products and services. These include childcare services and music lessons as two examples. Some small businesses that do provide non-exempt GST products or services may also not need to register for GST if they meet certain “small supplier” guidelines. In general, sole proprietorships, partnerships and corporations who have taxable revenues of less than $30,000 per year generally qualify as a “small supplier.”

What is Involved with HST Recovery?- Every business that is located in a Province that has an HST in place must collect the HST on all products and services sold. The amount of HST collected is based on the A business’s HST Recoverable amount is the difference Province that the supplying business is located. HST between the HST rate from Recovery is allowed when a business purchases goods their home province and the or services from another business located in a differing HST rate of the province(s) Province that charges a higher HST. they purchased goods or services from. Managing a Complicated Recovery- Without an automated expense reporting system in place, the process of determining how much a business can recover in HST paid is a very manual and time- consuming process. To recover every cent that a business can recover, they need to manually calculate the differences in HST rates for each purchase made in a Province with a different HST. Some businesses without adequate employee resources either calculate their HST Recoverable on only their largest purchases or don’t even attempt to tackle the HST Recovery process at all.

Automate Your Expense Management Has your business left money on the table by not completing System- With automated and customizable expense a complete and thorough HST report software solution in place, a business can create Recovery? “formulas” in the software that automatically calculate their HST Recovery rate for each and every qualifying purchase. This ability not only makes sure that a business recovers all of their HST paid but also frees up valuable employee resources.

SutiExpense is Field Tested and Proven- SutiExpense was designed with flexibility in mind. Knowing that an “out of box” expense software solution works “okay” for many and “great” for very few, every installation of SutiExpense is different from any other. For Canadian businesses, SutiExpense can be customized to include their specific “HST Recovery” formulas for each and every qualifying expense.