The NI band used to stop, then it got increased by gordon brown to 11% with 1% applying to your whole salary. It's never been 10% of everything you earn unless you earn under the amount where it's capped. Not sure when then 1% changed to 2% - but it was after I left the UK.

As an ordinary employee myself I can't really say tax is different enough for me to notice between here and the UK. I know that when I got my bonus quite a bit more than 50% of it disappeared here - in the UK it was only ever 41%.

Unless you have special circumstances, I don't think taxation should be a motivator to moving to Canada.

You should vote for my idea to have tax included on the currency. So a dollar would actually cost you $1.12 to acquire. Of course every tax region would then have to have its own currency, and some would feel cheated paying tax on items which used to be tax free, but the right thing to do would be to impose my concept, then leave it a couple of years before asking the public, then pretend to be caring by working out a compromise, but taking 5 years to implement it. It's the Canadian way!

Yeah me too. It's academic if I can legitimately claim the tax back, but most consumers cannot. The most consumer friendly way is to include it. I don't really understand people who think tax exclusive pricing is somehow more honest. Do you think I could try that line with the CRA on an audit? Perhaps I could tell them I didn't want to include, say, rental income because I didn't want them to get angry over having to work out what income was rental and what was non-rental.

Something sounds wrong there. Unless there are other deductions the maximum tax rate is 43.7%. If you had not maxed out your CPP and EI contributions the total withholdings could only have been just over 50%. Then you would have CPP and EI free pay for the rest of the year.

Judging by threads like this, there are plenty of other people concerned about prices and many of them in ways I'm not bothered about

Mine's a simple "where do I get best value?" while others are obsessing about how much they're paying to whom.

I suspect this. Afterwards my take-home goes up quite a bit.

But really why bother worrying about the 5% tax it barely makes a difference anyway, and who the heck bothers adding up exactly what items are going to cost other than having a rough idea if it's a few high value items.

Look, basically you're more interested in convenience from the sounds of it, I'm not. I want to know the price and the tax and I wanted it stated clearly and separately. Saying you get a receipt in the UK with the VAT clearly stated on it isn't always the case imx. If you buy things for your business and for yourself as a private individual, you definitely need to know what it is without tax if you're buying for a business, so it keeps everything consistent as far as I'm concerned.

The total price with tax included is not always the "final cost", because there are various things that can change that, claiming the tax back for a business, mail order inside Canada (because they have to charge the local tax, not their local tax), taking it across a border etc. So it's important to know the price without tax and have it stated upfront.

Saying it doesn't matter at a till in jurisdiction X doesn't really matter, that's only one method for buying something and I'd say consistency of application is important.

It's not honesty, it's transparency.

Why would you need to know for a business? If you're not the Ford Motor Company it's a lot less bother to use the simplified accounting method for GST.

In any case, the idea that the individual consumer should be inconvenienced for the benefit of corporations is not an attractive one.

Because as I've stated endlessly now, it's not the same in each jurisdiction, the quick method works when you're only claiming back GST - not HST. If as I occasionally do I happen to buy something for my business while in BC I have to claim HST back, not GST. Plus if I'm in Saskatchewan, I can only claim back the GST, not the PST, so therefore it's quite important to have it all spelled out.

It's all very well and good to say in situation X that it doesn't matter, okay what about situation Y, what about situation Z, where it does? You need consistency and it's more important here than in the UK because I think you're more likely to say buy across the border or buy in another province in person, and frankly I always thought the UK method of including it on retail purchases was a pain anyway. And yes I know certain things here have GST included on them like the parking downtown and gas, but I don't think they should...

As I said previously, in the UK and surrounding jurisdictions the rate is 20% or very near to it, there isn't the variation you have here where it can be 12% in BC and nothing in Montana, or the variation in what has tax applied and what does not. It's more important to know what the price without tax is to make a proper comparison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqyLA74gmPQ

But it's not. The price you pay is the price with the tax so knowing what the price would be, if there were no tax, only helps in feeling aggrieved about the government's take.

Precisely. It's more transparent.

But in UK despite most things including all taxes, VAT at least is shown. Things like petrol are deceptive because the receipt does not show full taxes, although I think on the pumps there is an explanation. Actually in both UK and Canada.

I think it comes down to whether you want 'transparency' or simplicity. For me simplicity rules, even if it's not as transparent. I just need to know the final price and if I'm bothered I'll check how much tax I was paying after the event. When comparing prices all that matters is the final price. Tax is non-negotiable so it doesn't really matter if I buy something really cheap but with higher tax on top, or something more expensive, with less tax. Unless of course I can claim the tax back but most people cannot.

I cannot help feeling the whole principle of adding tax on after to be dishonest. It reminds me of those scams where a place has lured you with an artificially lower price, and then try and bump it up when you're caught. Nobody likes those situations, so why is the tax exclusive price suddenly so honest? Even though almost everything is tax exclusive, I can't help feeling like I'm being cheated, particularly when the taxable amount is quite a chunk like in BC. I have not really got used to this, and don't think I ever will. It encourages a frivolous attitude to money, and is uncomfortable for people who like to keep tight control over what things are costing them. It's fine if you just succumb to whatever people want to charge you, but I don't tolerate that, and accordingly manage my money well.

Bullshit. The majority of consumers need to the know FINAL price to make a comparison.