Harmonized Sales Tax (HST)

This information applies to you if you are a CaseWare^® Time user with clients in Ontario and/or British Columbia, Canada.

The Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) will take effect in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada on July 1, 2010, replacing their existing Provincial Sales Tax and combining it with the federal Goods and Services Tax (GST).

• The HST is basically the GST with a provincial component added to arrive at a 13% rate in Ontario and a 12% rate in British Columbia. If no GST applies now, no HST will apply after July 1, 2010.
• The move to HST means you will now only deal with one tax for those provinces.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           What you need to do in the Time program

1. Make a backup of the Time data file:
1. In Time 2009 – Go to Tools | Maintenance | Backup/Restore.
2. In Time 2008 – Go to File | Save Compressed.
2. Review the tax rates for your clients before making global changes.
   
   Note: Global changes will only affect those clients with the tax rate equal to your tax rate defaults.
3. Create two lists of clients who have different tax rates than your firm’s current default tax rate. These lists will make you aware of clients who have different rates than your defaults. Also, you could have clients who have tax exemptions or have different tax rates for specific reasons which will be listed here. When making a global tax rate change, these clients’ tax rate will not change.
1. Use the client monitor report to create two listings.
1. In Time 2009 – Using the Equation Editor (for detailed information on Equation Editor filtering, please refer to the Help).
1. Filter on your clients’ primary tax rate not equal to your current primary tax rate. For example, 5.00 GST in Ontario:
   
   [Clients].[Primary Tax Rate] is not equal to '5.00'
   
   
2. Filter on your clients’ secondary tax rate not equal to your current secondary tax rate. For example, 8.00 PST in Ontario:
   
   [Clients].[Secondary Tax Rate] is not equal to '8.00'
   
   
2. In Time 2008 – Using the dBase filter
1. Filter on your clients’ primary tax rate not equal to your current primary tax rate. For example, 5.00 GST in Ontario:
   
   CM->PTAX<>"5.00"
   
   
2. Filter on your clients’ secondary tax rate not equal to your current secondary tax rate. For example, 8.00 PST in Ontario:
   
   CM->STAX<>"8.00"
   
   
2. Create a list of clients who are not in Ontario or British Columbia to see their tax rates.
1. Use the client monitor report to create the listing. Filter on clients not in Ontario and not in British Columbia.
1. In Time 2009 – Using the Equation Editor
   
   LTRIM([Client Addresses].[Prov/State]) is not equal to 'Ontario' AND LTRIM([Client Addresses].[Prov/State]) is not equal to 'British Columbia'
   
   
2. Time 2008 – Using the dBase filter
   
   (CM->PROV<>"Ontario")&(CM->PROV<>"British Columbia")
   
   Note: You will select the text used for each of these provinces in your file in the value field of the equation editor.
   
   
2. If there are clients outside of these two provinces with the same tax rates as your default tax rates, then you will need to make a decision:
1. If you have more clients with the default tax rate, do the global change (via the Company Profile dialog) and then manually change the tax rate for those exceptions in the client dialog or client monitor report.
   
   OR
   
   
2. If you have more clients that are not in Ontario and BC, make the changes in the client monitor report. This will be explained later in this document.
4. Decide which method best suits your firm to make a global change of the client’s rates.
1. If ALL your clients or the MAJORITY of your clients reside in Ontario or British Columbia do the following:
1. Review your client lists prepared in the previous steps. Mark any clients who are not in Ontario or British Columbia who have the same tax rates as Ontario or British Columbia. These clients’ rates will be changed globally and will have to be changed back after the global change.
2. Change the default wording and rates in the Time program globally.
1. Open the Time program and your Time file.
2. From the File menu, open the Company Profile dialog.
3. In the Terminology tab, under Tax, you can change your default wording. For example, in the Primary field, change it to “HST”.
4. In the Taxes tab, under Primary Tax, do the following:
1. Change the default wording for Description to “Harmonized sales tax”.
2. Change the Primary tax rate, depending on the province, to 13.00 (Ontario) or 12.00 (British Columbia). Press the Enter or the TAB key. You will be prompted with the following message.
3. “Change all client’s tax rates Y/N?” - Select YES to change all your clients’ tax rates. When Yes is selected, all existing client records with the same primary tax rate will be updated to reflect the new rate.
5. In the Secondary Tax area, do the following:
1. Change the Secondary Tax rate to zero. Press the Enter or the TAB key. You will be prompted with the following message.
2. “Change all client’s tax rates Y/N?” - Select YES to change all your clients’ tax rates. When Yes is selected, all existing client records with the same secondary tax rate will be updated to reflect the new rate.
6. Change any clients you marked on the list who had the same rate as Ontario or British Columbia that should not have been changed.
1. You can change the rates in the client monitor report, or directly in the client setup area.
2. If the majority of your clients are in non-HST provinces, you will continue to use the GST-only tax code. Therefore, you only need to change the GST tax to HST for clients in Ontario and British Columbia. Do the following:
1. Open the Time program and your Time file.
2. In the Document manager, find or create the “Client monitor” report.
3. While the client monitor report is highlighted, right click to go to the properties of this report.
4. Filter on any client provinces equal to Ontario.
   
   Time 2009 – Using the Equation Editor
   
   LTRIM([Client Addresses].[Prov/State]) is equal to 'Ontario'
   
   Time 2008 – Using the dBase filter
   
   CM->PROV="Ontario”
   
   
5. Select OK to close the document properties.
6. Open the Client Monitor report. This report is now filtered on clients in Ontario only.
7. Scroll to the right to find the GST (Primary tax) column.
8. Change the current 5.00 rate to 13.00 for all clients.
9. Go to the next column (Secondary tax).
10. Change the current rate to 0.00 for all clients.
11. Close the client monitor report.
3. To change the rate for clients in British Columbia, do the following:
1. In step d. above, filter on provinces equal to British Columbia.
2. Continue the above steps to step g.
3. In step h., change the current 5.00 rate to 12.00.
4. Follow the remaining steps to k.
4. If you use Groups in your file and if you have groups that reside in Ontario or British Columbia, perform the above steps in the Group Monitor report.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Important Information

Note

The HST tax will only affect new invoices and credit notes created after the above modifications are made. The new tax rate will not change for invoices or credit notes that were entered prior to the tax rate change.

The tax amount can be overwritten for invoices and credit notes that are entered before the tax rate change.

If you use CaseWare Today, in order to have your clients’ new tax rate up to date, we recommend that synchronization be performed from your Time data file to the Today folder in Microsoft Outlook.

To synchronize from Time to the Today folder in Microsoft Outlook:

1. Open the Synchronization dialog by clicking the Today button on the Outlook bar.
2. A Select dialog appears. Click the Browse button to locate and select the Time program folder. The Today dialog appears with the Today Synchronization tab selected.
3. Select the direction of synchronization: From Time to Outlook.
4. Select the Time data file from which you are going to synchronize. Click the Browse button to navigate to the data file.
5. Select the Outlook folder where you are keeping your information from Time.
6. Click OK to synchronize.