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BC PST Taxable Services
HST in BC ended on March 31, 2013, and the BC Provincial Sales Tax (PST) was re-implemented effective April 1, 2013.
A taxable service, in BC, includes:
 | legal services |
| accommodation |
| telecommunication services - see Bulletin PST 107, which also lists exemptions |
|
is any service provided to install,
assemble, dismantle, repair, adjust, restore, recondition, refinish, or
maintain tangible personal property, but does not include a
service:
|
Tangible personal property (TPP) means
- personal property that can be seen, weighed, measured, felt or touched, or that is in any other way perceptible to the senses, and includes natural or manufactured gas,
- electricity,
- heat
- affixed machinery, and
- an improvement to real property or part of an improvement to real property that is removed from the site at which it is affixed or installed, while it is removed from that site
Examples of taxable services to tangible personal property would be repairs or maintenance of automobiles, furniture, computers, televisions, watches, and business equipment.
An example of tangible personal property that will become real property on installation would be windows, doors, hot water tanks, etc. These will be attached and part of the house, which is real property. If these items are purchased uninstalled, there would be PST paid on the purchase price. If they are purchased from a supplier/contractor who also installs them, and the supplier charges one lump sum for the supply and installation, in the old PST system there was no PST applied to the lump sum contract. Under the new legislation, if the supplier/contractor pays PST when purchasing the tangible personal property, then tax will not be applicable to the supply of the property (s. 80 of the Provincial Sales Tax Act). If the contractor does not want to pay the PST when purchasing the tangible personal property, then the contract for the supply and installation must specifically state that the end purchaser is liable for PST on the price of the property, and the price of the property must be set out in the contract.
BC PST on Cloud Services
The BC Government announced in June 2023 that it intends to introduce legislation as part of Budget 2024 that will retroactively support the application of PST to cloud service providers and their customers. This decision was in response to the BC Supreme Court case Hootsuite Inc. v. British Columbia (Finance), 2023 BCSC 358. For more information on this see B.C. Update: Retroactive Legislation To Reverse Court Decision And Tax Cloud Services by Zvi Halpern-Shavim and Elena Balkos of Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP.
TaxTips.ca Resources
Government of BC Resources
Provincial sales tax publications - includes
| Forms |
| General publications |
| Bulletins, including industry-specific bulletins |
Revised: September 20, 2024