By Cheryl Jahn

Business gear up for "GST Holiday"

Business gear up for “GST Holiday”

Dec 12, 2024 | 4:09 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – “The crayons are exempt. However, the colouring books are not exempt.”

That’s how the owner of Great White Toys, Cameron Stolz, describes the so-called “GST holiday.” It’s mass confusion and major headaches for merchants as they have to prepare for the so-called two-month GST exemption.

Toys, for example, have a myriad of rules. Some toys are clearly designed for kids, while others appeal to the bigger kid and us and therefore are not exempt.

“The idea is great, but the implementation? To have it take effect on a Saturday morning, on the busiest day of the week. It makes no sense at all. It’s just adding further challenges and confusion to all the merchants are dealing with this.”

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“At the end of the day, the rebate. It’s a wonderful thing in that right,” says Neil Godbout, executive director of the Prince George Chamber of Commerce. “It does. It’s great to provide affordability help for people who are struggling. But it has, as we’ve said all along, real-world consequences for small businesses.”

And the rules are bizarre.

“One example of this is you have a Lego set that’s four-nine plus with 625 pieces, but then you have the 583 that targeted at 18+ and because there is the difference in the age marks on it, one’s GST exempt and one isn’t,” explains Stolz. “From our perspective, it’s frustrating because how do you explain to the customer that pencil crayons and crayons are GST exempt? But the colouring books you’re buying with it aren’t? That makes no sense at all. The fact that you’ve got Pokemon cards is exempt, but hockey cards aren’t.”

He says when it comes to those items that aren’t cited specifically, most merchants will just make them exempt and deal with the consequences at tax time.

In the meantime, it adds up to a lot of work at a critical time of the holiday shopping season.

“We’re going to have to turn around in the space of just a few hours between Friday night when we close on Saturday morning when we open, we have to turn around and change our entire point-of-sale system on how the taxes are charged, which is insanely crazy to do.”

He says the merchants themselves can’t make heads or tails of the rules. He can’t imagine what it is like for the holiday shopper.

“Again, it’s just a lot of very convoluted. It’s like the person building this list never talked to Santa.”