To the Editor:
It appears Charlie Wyse is trying to speak for me in regards to the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) vote results, in the page A1 story, headlined HST axed by 9.5 per cent margin, in the Aug. 31 edition of the Free Press.
He says it is “victory for families and small business.”
I operate a small business. Mr. Wyse does not speak for me in anyway whatsoever.
Turning back the clock to the old Provincial Sales Tax (PST) plus Goods and Services Tax (GST) system is going to cost me time (for administrating two taxes); cost me money (as the PST portion of the tax is not refunded now and savings passed onto our clients); cost me business (as competing firms outside British Columbia will be able to sell their goods cheaper); and cost me employees (as there will be a loss of business).
It's as plain and simple as that. This will happen.
As a business person, I know firsthand how the HST would have, and did, benefit the business.
Tom Fletcher's column on page A9, headlined ‘Peoples victory’ means pain ahead, last week quite rightly identified that when the public sector and the dependent citizen's outnumber those who govern, economic realities tend to be disregarded.
I believe we are at that stage in B.C. now. As a full-paying contributor to the tax trough, I am now being told by those who feed from it to contribute more, work harder and how to run my business - by those who have no idea how to run a business. Maybe it's time to look elsewhere.
Walter Bramsleven
100 Mile House
