Definition:

Updated: 04/16/2013

In the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario and Prince Edward Island, a harmonized sales tax replaces both the five percent federal goods and services tax (GST) and the provincial sales tax and is applied on the same basis as the GST. In Nova Scotia the HST is 15 percent; in Prince Edward Island the HST is 14 percent; and in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Ontario the HST is 13 percent.

On April 1, 2013, as a result of a referendum in which BC Voters Rejected the HST, the province went back to a two-level sales tax system of GST and provincial sales tax.