On November 21st, the federal government proposed a temporary GST/HST break on specific goods and services from December 14, 2024 to February 15, 2025.  HST participating provinces have also agreed to provide relief of tax on their respective provincial component of the HST (8% in Ontario, and 10% in each of NL, NS, NB and PE).

This means ensuring their point-of-sale (POS) and accounting systems are adjusted to stop calculating tax on the goods and services relieved from the tax.  It also means ensuring that the POS is re-adjusted on February 16, 2025 to correct start charging the GST/HST again.

Businesses may end up collecting GST/HST in error on these sales, especially for the first days of the relief period.  Tax collected in error must either be refunded to the purchaser, or reported and remitted on the GST/HST return.  Tax collected in error cannot be kept by the vendor.

The temporary zero-rating of these goods will not affect how sales are reported on line 101 of a business’ GST/HST return.

Goods that Qualify for the Temporary Relief: 

The following are descriptions of goods that would qualify for the proposed tax relief.

• Food or beverages: items for human consumption that are:

• • Alcoholic beverages (excluding spirits but including wine, beer, ciders, and spirit coolers up to 7 per cent ABV);

• • Carbonated beverages, non-carbonated fruit juice or fruit flavoured beverages or products that, when added to water, produce one of these beverages;

• • Candies; confectionery classed as candy or goods sold as candies (e.g., candy floss, chewing gum, and chocolate); fruits, seeds, nuts or popcorn coated or treated with candy, chocolate, honey, molasses, sugar, syrup, or artificial sweeteners;

• • Chips, crisps, puffs, curls, or sticks (e.g., potato chips, corn chips, cheese puffs, potato sticks, bacon crisps, and cheese curls), popcorn, brittle pretzels, and salted nuts or seeds;

• • Granola products and snack mixtures that contain cereals, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, or other edible products;

• • Ice lollies, juice bars, ice waters, ice cream, ice milk, sherbet, frozen yoghurt or frozen pudding, including non-dairy substitutes;

• • Fruit bars, rolls or drops or similar fruit-based snack foods;

• • Cakes, muffins, pies, pastries, tarts, cookies, doughnuts, brownies, croissants with sweetened filling or coating (note that many bread products, such as bagels, English muffins, croissants, and bread rolls, are already zero-rated);

• • Pudding, including flavoured gelatine, mousse, flavoured whipped dessert product, or any other products similar to pudding;

• • Prepared salads, sandwiches, platters of cheese, cold cuts, fruit or vegetables, and other arrangements of prepared food;

• • Food or beverages heated for consumption;

• • Beverages dispensed at the place where they are sold;

• • Food or beverages sold in conjunction with catering services;

• • Food or beverages sold at an establishment where all or substantially all of the food or beverages sold are currently excluded from zero-rating (e.g., a restaurant, coffee shop, take-out outlet, pub, mobile canteen, lunch counter, or concession stand); and

• • Bottled water or unbottled water that is dispensed at a permanent establishment of the supplier.

For more details visit: Government of Canada: Department of Finance