In Canada if you have a manufacturer’s coupon for a free product of theirs do you still pay GST and PST?

I recently cashed in a coupon sent to me from a manufactuer so that I could obtain their product for free, but when I went to the cash register they taxed the item the same as if I were buying it. To me $0.00 times any amount comes up to zero! I can’t seem to find anything online that covers this particular ‘grey’ area.

It’s not a grey area, it’s the law:

“Some manufacturers give rebates to their customers through the retailer when the customer buys the goods. Even if the retailer applies the rebate toward the retail price of the goods, the retailer collects GST/HST on the full retail price before deducting the rebate amount.”

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tpcs/gst-tps/rbts/mnnfctrrs-eng.html

Online Shopping vs Cross-Border Shopping!

Comments are closed