It taxes both businesses and their customers. It means businesses here in Nova Scotia have higher costs than their competitors in Ontario, Alberta, Ireland or France. It means lost sales by our seaweed producers, our environmental engineers and our tourist operators. Eliminating the PST offers Nova Scotia a chance to lower business costs, improve our competitive position with the rest of Canada and the world. It offers our businesses a chance to gain more customers and create more jobs.
Most businesses are able to get the tax they pay back through refundable input tax credits.
That's about one-sixth of the revenue needed for health care, education, social assistance and other government programs. The solution has been to harmonize the sales tax systems. That will be good for the economy because that money will be spent on new investment or passed on to customers in the form of lower prices. Eventually, new economic growth will replace the lost revenue. But, the government was left with a dilemma.