I visit my family in Vancouver, Canada often and in the past, it's always been a fun shopping trip. My favourite stores in Vancouver are Jacob, Club Monaco, Zara and Artzia. Times were especially good when the we used to get $1.5 Canadian dollars to $1 USD. It was like a sale everyday! Sales tax in Vancouver is higher than Washington, it's a 7% provincial tax plus a 7% federal tax (GST). The federal government used to have a GST rebate program for visitors. If you spent more than $250 on your trip, you can get your GST back, i.e. 7% of that total. Well, on my most recent trip just a couple of weeks ago, I found out that they did away with the GST rebate program way back in April 2007. Now with the US dollar at par with the Canadian dollar, shopping in Canada just got a lot less fun.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Shopping in Canada Just Got Less Fun
I visit my family in Vancouver, Canada often and in the past, it's always been a fun shopping trip. My favourite stores in Vancouver are Jacob, Club Monaco, Zara and Artzia. Times were especially good when the we used to get $1.5 Canadian dollars to $1 USD. It was like a sale everyday! Sales tax in Vancouver is higher than Washington, it's a 7% provincial tax plus a 7% federal tax (GST). The federal government used to have a GST rebate program for visitors. If you spent more than $250 on your trip, you can get your GST back, i.e. 7% of that total. Well, on my most recent trip just a couple of weeks ago, I found out that they did away with the GST rebate program way back in April 2007. Now with the US dollar at par with the Canadian dollar, shopping in Canada just got a lot less fun.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment