I'm in Canada and I have a couple of questions for you.
Canadian hosts, do you charge GST/PST for your hosting service?
I guess I don't have to charge my international customers, but what about my customers in Canada?

We charge our Candian customers GST, as you said any customer from any other country is not charged.

I would like to see what other say on this though, we have been questioning if we need to do it.

We charge all Canadian customers GST and we charge PST to customers residing within Saskatchewan.....where we are located....

You do not have to charge tax if you yearly income is under $30,000.

...in our first two years of business, we didn't need to charge GST because we didn't have enough profit.

But, we did register anyway and charge it because then we got all the GST money we paid for things back at the end of the year.

When you consider that, and the price you pay for stuff like servers, multiple phone lines, office supplies, etc, you can get a huge amount of money back.

In our first year of business, we only made about $20,000 in profit, so didn't need to register. But we had registered in advance anyway and ended up getting back around $8000.00 at the end of the year. If we hadn't registered, we wouldn't have got anything back.....

So, I think the exchange of a minor headache in accounting for a large cheque at the end of the year from the government, it's worth while to register for and collect GST when you are a business in Canada.

Whats GST/PST?

Goods and Services Tax
Provincial Sales Tax

...right?

...Yes thats right

hmmm, $20, 000 /1st year..
could have made more workin full time at mcdonalds, but I who am I to speak.
<student

< $30,000.00 no need for GST PST.

> $30,000 Yes on GST and if your provice requires it PST on clients who reside in that provice. NOTE: some provinces are weird as to how they decide who is taxable for PST and who is not. For example if you are based in Alberta, but your server is in Ontario, and you have the NOC address listed. Then you must charge Ont. PST to Ontario clients. (the way around that is to not list your NOC address).

My advice is talk to your provicial tax office and find out the rules for your provice, and if in doubt talk to an accountant.

Just a note on BC PST.... you have to charge PST in BC if you offer email services. If you only offer hosting without email you do not need to charge the PST.

Go figure.

aleavens,

Do you charge your international customers GST? This sounds strange to me. How am I suppose to explain to my american customers what is GST?

Peter

You do not have to charge GST to any clients that do not reside in Canada.

If you are dealing with a company with both a US presence and a Canadian presence, ask them what they would prefer. If you bill their US address, you don't have to charge GST, but if you bill their Canadian address, you have to charge GST.

Thanks Thinker,

And I don't have to charge PST for international customers, right?

Peter

If your customer is from :

Canada & same province: GST & PST (depending on province)
Canada & different province: GST (PST as well if you are registered to do business in the other province)
Outside Canada: nothing unless the purchase is made at your offices then you charge GST & PST and the other party can apply to the government(s) for a refund.

It is interesting because of provincial variations. In Nova Scotia for example, the GST and PST are "harmonized", ie there is only one tax collected and the provincial tax office sends the federal government their portion. So despite the gross revenue <30,000 not requireing collection of the GST under federal regulations, ANY sale (of a taxable good or service) is subject to the harmonized tax and you can get the GST rebated.

It may be the same in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island as they have a harmonized sales tax as well.

Thanks NyteOwl,

I'm in Ontario, do I have to charge PST for Ontario customers?

Peter

I'm in Ontario, do I have to charge PST for Ontario customers?

If the service you are providing is taxable under Ontario law then yes you have to charge PST to customers residing in Ontario.

I had called Revenue Canada to ask them if I needed to charge PST or GST for web hosting, they told me that I didn't. I asked about web design as well, and taxes for web design are necessary ONLY if you hand them their site on a disk, if you upload it to their webspace there is no tax. I may have to call again to see about taxes for web hosting, maybe I talked to someone who wasn't sure of what he was talking about.

When you recieve an answer like that you should request it in writing, it will save you a lot of trouble in the Audit they are going to perform on you when they start sending you 50k a month back in GST credits in a few years.

Steve

I'm in Ontario, do I have to charge PST for Ontario customers?

No, not yet. :)

http://www.rev.gov.on.ca/images/rsie_guide651e.pdf