MPs probe officers on capacity to accumulate GST from Netflix, other overseas corporations

OTTAWA — Opposition MPs pressed officers Thursday on how completely ready they’ll be to commence collecting GST on electronic product sales by foreign providers these kinds of as Netflix, Airbnb and Amazon starting subsequent year.

Foreign providers with out a physical presence in Canada are not at this time necessary to obtain the federal products and services tax, but Ottawa outlined ideas to change that in its fiscal update earlier this 7 days.

Senior officials from the Canada Profits Agency, Finance Department and Canada Border Services Company explained Thursday they are self-confident they’ll be able to start out gathering GST and HST for cross-border digital income by July 1, 2021.

CRA chief executive Bob Hamilton told the Standing Committee on Public Accounts that the company has the means it desires to meet the deadline.

Hamilton explained the CRA will get a “good share” of the GST earnings that must be gathered on cross-border income and then function to shut any gaps that it finds.

There have been handful of specific details, but Hamilton and other officers mentioned they’d be capable to seek advice from and discover from the OECD, other jurisdictions with comparable tax actions and the firms themselves.

This report by The Canadian Press was initially printed Dec. 3, 2020.

The Canadian Push