A Vancouver seller charged GST but had never registered for BC PST. A voluntary disclosure brought them current with penalties waived.
British Columbia runs a provincial sales tax separate from the federal GST, and this business had registered federally while missing the PST obligation on taxable goods sold into BC. Rather than wait for an assessment, we quantified the exposure, filed a voluntary disclosure, and registered the client for PST. The back tax was paid on a schedule and the associated penalties were waived.
E-commerce sits across provincial sales tax regimes, marketplace collection rules and inventory held in other jurisdictions.
British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba run their own sales taxes alongside GST, filed separately, and unlike GST they are generally not recoverable as input credits.
Why it bites: Businesses expanding into a PST province routinely register late, and the province assesses from the date the obligation started, not the date of registration.
Registration is mandatory once taxable supplies pass $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters. Input tax credits require documentation that scales with invoice size.
Why it bites: Unmatched input tax credits are the first thing disallowed in a sales-tax review, and the assessment covers every period reviewed.
Every engagement above was priced as a fixed fee agreed before the work started, and paid only once the client had reviewed the result. If any of this looks like your situation, the first step is a free 15-minute call — we will tell you plainly whether there is anything worth doing.
Reviewed for the 2025 tax year by Udit Gupta, Certified Tax Accountant. Figures describe a real engagement; outcomes depend on your own facts. Client details are omitted for confidentiality.
