The Liberals of Ontario on Friday proposed removing the provincial section of the HST from under $ 20 ready-to-eat groceries and paying for it by raising taxes on wealthy residents and highly profitable companies.
Currently, the HST exemption for ready meals reaches $ 4, and Liberal leader Steven Del Duca said the proposed measure would save money for families adding items such as roast chicken to their grocery store or office clerk eating with from a local restaurant.
“Families across this province … need real relief,” he said. “There is no need for empty words. No hollow promises are needed. They need real relief that will help them in their daily lives.
NDP leader Andrea Horwath said the Liberals were the ones who put HST in processed foods above $ 4 when they were previously in power.
“Now, he’s trying to fix it by saying, ‘Well, we’re going to remove HST from ready-to-eat foods under $ 20 now,'” he said. “We can not trust the Liberals to do the right thing from the beginning.”
The Liberals say the move would cost about $ 500 million a year in lost revenue.
It would add an additional one percent tax to Ontario-based companies with profits of more than $ 1 billion a year, which they say would bring in about $ 150 million a year.
They also propose applying a two percent income tax increase to people earning more than $ 500,000 a year.
They say this will create a new tax rate of 15.16 percent for personal income above this threshold – affecting 0.2 percent of Ontario residents – and generate more than $ 350 million in annual revenue.
This Canadian Press report was first published on April 29, 2022.
