My Views on Consumption Taxes Like HST

Sales taxes are essentially unfair but necessary for the reasons
outlined below.

They are 'consumption taxes'.. the more you consume a good or service
the more you pay. They are unfair as the tax paid represents a greater
portion of a person's disposable income if the person is at a low income
level. They unfairly penalize lower income earners.

However, some argue it's a good tax as high income earners pay a lot of
consumption tax as they consume more goods and services (including what we
might call luxury goods and services).

Also a consumption tax may cause a desireable change of public/consumer
behaviour. That is why the carbon tax idea was good public policy

What some governments do (federal does although it is not good enough),
is (either on the income tax form or via periodic payments), is pay flat
credits to people. Low income Canadians receive quarterly payments from the federal government called GST credits. They don't compensate for all GST paid but certainly provide some help.

Ontario government is planning on giving grants to every person to help with the transition to the HST.

Quebec, and some of the Atlantic provinces have a HST.

Finally many opponents of the HST are right wing conservatives who
dislike government doing anything in our society. They mistakenly believe
things like health care; education; welfare; emergency services don't cost
anything. Governments need revenue to pay for these activities. It pains
me to see federal and provincial NDP politicians agreeing with the likes of
Stephen Harper, Michael Harris etc.(I could add as wll most of the crowd who are on
or who phone talk radio stations)