One the points that I thought wasn't harped on nearly enough when the HST was still the province's most-talked-about-issue was the fact that all the uncertainty around the tax was causing an incalculable amount of damage to the province's business and investment climate. Indeed, if for nothing else, that's something that the BC Liberals should have to answer for when it comes to their handling of the HST file.
On this note, Michael Smyth wrote in The Province the other day that:
The hated tax is hammering the sale of new homes — and not just ones priced above $525,000, the threshold where tax-offsetting rebates disappear.
"All home sales are getting hit, because there's so much buyer con-fusion out there," said Day, president of University Heights Development Corp. in Squamish.Now he wants to hit the government back — in court."I'm talking to our lawyers about a class-action lawsuit," he said. "It might be the only way to get the government to wake up to just how damaging this is."But wait: the HST was soundly defeated by voters in the August referendum, and the government promised to scrap the HST and bring back the old provincial sales tax."But nobody knows when that will happen," Day fumes. "They've squandered months already, and now they're talking about even more delays.
In a recent interview with Voice of BC's Vaughn Palmer, Premier Christy Clark said about the government's transition away from the HST that, "Well, we are moving Heaven and Earth, we're trying to go as fast as we possibly can. I can't give you odds on our chances, I mean we're going to meet our date, which is 18 months. If we can get it done any faster than that, we are absolutely going to."
Apparently this can't come soon enough for developers and home-builders in the province.
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