The GST is a value added tax. And it was an entirely new tax that Muldoon created.
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Sure... but what the GST replaced was the Manufacturers’ Sales Tax and it was 13.5% and put exports at a huge disadvantage. You don’t think that Canadians are better off with the GST (now called the HST)?
http://www.davidmckie.com/twenty-five-years-later-gst-has-increased-competition-for-manufacturers-but-experts-and-industry-say-more-tax-incentives-needed/
You don’t think that Canadians are better off with the GST (now called the HST)?
Absolutely not.
The old manufacturers sales tax only taxed manufactured goods, not everything. And there were so many exemptions and special deals (especially around exported goods) that the actual rate that almost everyone paid was much lower.
If Muldoon was really worried about the economic effect of the MST, he should have just got rid of it instead of cutting income taxes, cutting corporate taxes, and creating the GST.
Allowing the Administrative State to create a new tax is always stupid.