By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – In her 2021 economic and fiscal update, delivered on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland provided an update on proposed tax measures including a Digital Services Tax (DST).
First announced in the 2020 fall economic statement, more details were presented in Budget 2021, which launched a consultation of stakeholders that was held between April 19, and June 18, 2021.
“The government has a strong preference for a multilateral approach to addressing the tax challenges arising from today’s digital economy,” the economic statement reads.
“In the interim, to protect the interests of Canadians, the government is moving forward with legislation for the DST,” the document goes on.
This would apply no earlier than Jan. 1, 2024, for those who earn more than $20 million in Canada.
If they meet that threshold, Netflix and other so-called web giants (Amazon, Dropbox, Spotify, Disney+, etc.) will be required to collect federal sales tax from Canadian customers.
Of the provinces that have not signed on with the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), Québec (Jan. 1, 2019), Saskatchewan (Jan. 1, 2020), British Columbia (April 1, 2021) and Manitoba (Dec. 1, 2021) have implemented this tax.
