Getting almost no coverage is the terrible business-throttling aspect of the old PST. Purchasing equipment, or moving productivity-improving equipment into the province was penalized under the PST. Business consumables were taxed. These costs were passed on to the consuming public.
Businesses were subject to brutal, expensive audits. As a result of confusing obscurities in the PST, onerous and unfair assessments depressed and angered small businesses.
All this goes away with the simplicity of the HST. Basically now we just pay HST on everything we purchase, collect it on everything we sell, and remit the difference to CRA.
HST is a vastly superior system.
Lawrence Alder, Delta