Tax Newsflash - October 19, 2009

HST Transitional Rules Released

The 2009 Ontario Budget proposed to harmonize the Ontario Retail Sales Tax ("RST") with the federal goods and services tax to create a Harmonized Sales Tax for Ontario ("HST").

On October 14, 2009, the Ontario Ministry of Revenue released Information Notice No. 3, containing general transitional rules for the Ontario HST. The general rule is that the HST regime comes into force on July 1, 2010, HST will be payable for various types of consideration paid after May 1, 2010, to the extent that the consideration pertains to that part of a supply that is supplied after July 1, 2010, and there may be some self-assessment requirements on select non-consumers after October 14. 2009.