Hey Canadians: Thoughts on GST
 

Have any of you Canadian webmasters registered for GST?
I know a benefit of doing so is you can claim back any GST you pay OUT. But what about the revenue side? If most of your income is from US sources, how is the GST treated? Is it worth registering?

if oyu make over 30k/year with your biz or self employed, you have to pay GST to gov and get a number. if you haven't done so you owe a shitload of backtaxes.

Do you have to pay GST on the US based Income?

The Gov't will want GST on any sales you make if you run your own program.


:2 cents:

Sarah,
we did register for GST, but we do not pay any GST
on any non canadian based revenue. However, we do pay
GST on various things we purchase locally (servers, accounting
services, legal services, design services, etc) and we get
that GST back every year when we file our GST return.

One important thing to mention is that our US revenue is
from selling other people's sites and not from our own
pay sites (yet). I've read a couple of threads on this
board regarding Canadians who run their own sites
and the issue of GST on those sites seems to be a grey one.
Seems some folks have been told by CCRA that they need
to pay GST on every membership they sell.


- jpoker

You don't have to pay GST on revenue from outside Canada.

I know a company that runs their own paysite who got audited and they were told they have to find what the average percentage of their members come from Canada vs. outside-Canada and remit GST based on that average % rate.

This is still a gray area actually. If you run a paysite, you need to calculate what percentage of members are canadian and pay GST on those. If you don't know this percent, CCRA assumes 100%.

If you're a webmaster it's a little bit up in the air still. If you are selling traffic to US companies (sponsors), then you should be fine and not have to collect GST. What's not determined really is if you do consulting work from Canada. I'm going to court over this myself with CCRA, so I'll let you know how it goes.

WG

Thanks very much for the input. I was wondering if anyone had been audited in this area: the revenue in question is from sending traffic to sites not owned by us, so I guess the real dilema lies with a Canadian based pay site (which thankfully doesn't apply yet). I really think registering in order to claim back the ITC's (tax credits on the GST that we payout on expenses) would be worth the while.

it is definitely worth your while to register, I get a refund of $2-3k each year. But then again I'm being audited on this very issue and I'm just a webmaster, I don't run my own paysites. But then again my issue is mostly regarding consulting work versus signups made.

WG

Hey WiredGuy, please keep us updated on how your audit goes. If the earnings from the US are consulting fees, and CCRA wants to get GST on that money, that may pose a problem with future stuff we are looking at getting into. THANKS!!:)

Will do... I think it's mostly bullshit if you ask me and their way of trying to capitalize on 7% of all my sales for the last 3 years, which is exactly why I'm fighting it. My lawyer seems confident on winning, but they'll say anything to increase their billable hours...

I'll let you know.
WG