One of the more notable differences between Income Tax and GST/HST is that for GST/HST purposes partnerships are expressly defined to be “persons” – separate from the partners of the partnership. Most provincial sales tax statues take the same approach and define partnerships to be separate legal persons. However, this is not the case in British Columbia (“BC”), which is the sole Canadian jurisdiction that does not treat partnerships as persons for Provincial Sales Tax (“PST”) purposes.
This could change as the BC Ministry of Finance (the “Ministry”) has released a Consultation Paper seeking feedback on proposed legislative changes to bring BC in line with the rest of Canada. Subject to public support, the Ministry has identified four legislative or regulatory changes which would be required: