TREVOR KOROLL
NEWS REPORTER

Ontario is one step closer to having a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) after the bill was introduced to the legislature on Nov. 16.

The HST will combine Ontario’s eight per cent tax with the five per cent GST. The HST would be charged in one 13 per cent fee after the purchase of an item – including many items which were previously exempt from the PST.

While the province is preparing for major tax changes, Terry Kyritsis, the director of campus services, said  Humber will have to wait and see if prices at the college will rise or fall.

“It shouldn’t affect anything as far as we know it today.  But we won’t know exactly what’s going to happen until the March budget,” said Kyritsis.

On Nov. 12, McGuinty added prepared food items under $4 and newspapers to the list of HST exemptions.

If prepared food under $4 hadn’t been exempt, Kyritsis said there “would have been a difference.”

For example, a medium coffee at Java Jazz that costs $1.40 would have gone up by eight per cent or 11 cents.

Meal plans bought through the school are currently exempt from the PST and GST and will be exempt from the HST as well, Kyritsis said.

Angela Francavilla, 27, a second- year law clerk student, said the exemption of prepared food items under $4 will “make a difference.”

But Sean Treeby, 25, a landscape technician student in his second year, said the HST will still have an impact on his industry.

“It will affect the ability to sell projects,” Treeby said.  Lower taxes and prices “helps out in the sales department.”

In a press release, the government said the new tax is part of a package that will give HST tax credits of $260 to low income residents and personal income tax cuts to 93 per cent of Ontario taxpayers. In all, $10.3 billion has been promised in tax relief over three years.

The $4 exemption will help “slightly, but not enough,” said Michael Prue, MPP of Beaches-East York and NDP finance critic.

“The HST is in your face every day,” said Prue. “People are going to notice it.”

Prue said big items such as gas, hydro and heating oil will still go up by  eight per cent.

The government has denied requests by the opposition for a public hearing into the HST, Prue said. “McGuinty is refusing because he knows the overwhelming majority are opposed.”

Kyritsis said it will be “business as usual” at Humber but the school will have to wait for the final passing of the bill before all the details and the true impact of the HST will be known.