Work out whether you have to
Before anything else, and against what you sell, not what your industry is called. This step decides the other four, and it is the one worth a second opinion.
PST registration in BCRegistering for PST in British Columbia
Whether you have to, what the province needs from you, and what changes once you are on their books. PST has no revenue threshold. It turns on what you sell.
Registering for PST is not difficult and it does not take long. The hard part is the question before it — whether you have to at all — because PST does not use the revenue threshold people expect from GST.
There is no turnover figure to cross. It turns on what you sell, so the answer can be yes from your first sale, or no at any size.
Who it applies to
Which side of the line you are on
Generally must register
- You sell or lease goods in BC in the ordinary course of business
- You sell software or telecommunication services here
- You provide legal services
- You perform work on goods — repairs, maintenance, restoration
- You provide accommodation in BC
- You are outside BC but sell goods into it above the province’s thresholds
Generally need not
- Everything you sell falls in an exempt category
- You only make wholesale sales to registered resellers who give you their number
- You provide services that are not on the taxable list
- You are not carrying on business in BC at all
The second column is where people get it wrong. "My work is a service" feels like a complete answer and is not. The taxable-services list is specific, follows no obvious principle, and has been widened before. Check what you sell against the list instead of reasoning from your industry.
How to register
Five steps once the answer is clear
Get your details together
Your business number, the legal name and structure, what you sell, where you operate from, when you started or expect to start making taxable sales, and your banking details. Nothing exotic, but assembling it first turns the registration into a single sitting.
Register through eTaxBC
Online, through the province’s eTaxBC system, which is where you will file the return later. You can register before your first taxable sale instead of waiting for it, and that is usually tidier.
You get a PST number
A registration number of your own, separate from your GST number and from your business number. It belongs on your invoices, and you will need it to file. Having one of the two tax numbers never implies the other.
Start charging, and start tracking
From your effective date you charge PST on taxable sales, keep it separate from your own money, and file on the reporting period the province assigns you. What you collect is what you remit. There is no input credit to net it down.
After registration
What changes once you are registered
You are collecting money for the province from the effective date, not from the date the paperwork clears. If you registered late, the obligation still runs from when you should have started.
A reporting period arrives with the registration — monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual — and it will not necessarily match your GST period. Two calendars, kept separately, is the ordinary state of affairs and the most common thing to get caught by.
The practical advice is dull and it works: move the PST out of the operating account as you collect it. Sales tax that sits in the current account gets spent during a good month, and the shortfall at the deadline is the owner’s to cover.
Late registration
If you should have registered earlier
Common, and fixable. You owe the PST you should have collected, plus interest. If you never charged it, that comes out of your own margin, because those customers are long gone.
Coming forward voluntarily generally puts you in a better position than being found. Understand the options before you do either. That takes a conversation, not a form.
Not sure whether you need to register?
Tell us what you sell in the form. We check it against both registrations and confirm the answer in your written quote, before we file anything.