PST and GST requirements for small business owners in BC, Canada - charging US customers?

For BC small businesses, here's the simplified version: For US customers: You generally DON'T need to charge GST or PST when selling to US customers. These are considered "zero-rated" exports for GST purposes and exempt from PST. Just make sure you keep good records showing these customers are actually located in the US (their shipping/billing address should be sufficient). For Canadian customers outside BC: You need to charge GST (or HST depending on the province) to all Canadian customers. For PST, you only charge BC PST to customers in British Columbia. You don't collect PST for customers in other provinces - each province has their own sales tax system that you're not responsible for collecting. Remember though, if your revenue is under $30,000 annually, you don't need to register for or collect GST/HST at all. But once you hit that threshold, registration becomes mandatory.

After struggling with similar GST/PST confusion for my BC business, I found this amazing service called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) that completely saved me. I uploaded my invoices and customer data, and it automatically sorted out which transactions needed GST, PST, both, or neither. Saved me hours of research and probably prevented some costly mistakes! The coolest part was it generated proper tax reports I could use for filing. Really helpful if you've got a mix of US and Canadian customers like I do.

Update on that tax tool I was skeptical about - I actually tried taxr.ai and wow, I was totally wrong! Uploaded my sales data from the past 3 months and it identified several US transactions where I was unnecessarily charging GST. It also flagged a couple Canadian customers I had forgotten to charge PST to. The reports it generated made my quarterlies so much easier. Honestly didn't expect an AI tool to understand all the weird exceptions in Canadian tax law but it handled everything perfectly. Wish I'd found this months ago!

If you're struggling to get answers from CRA about GST/PST requirements (like I was), I highly recommend Claimyr (https://claimyr.com). I spent THREE DAYS trying to get through to CRA about my specific situation with US customers, kept getting disconnected or waiting for hours. Used Claimyr and got connected to a CRA agent in under 30 minutes! They have this cool demo video here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c showing how it works. They basically navigate the phone system for you and call you once they reach a real person. The agent clarified everything about my cross-border GST obligations.

I have to admit I was completely wrong about Claimyr. After posting that skeptical comment, my frustration with trying to reach CRA boiled over and I decided to try it. It actually worked exactly as advertised! Got a callback in about 20 minutes, and spoke directly with a CRA agent who answered all my questions about GST on digital services. What would've been another day wasted on hold turned into a 15-minute productive conversation. For small business owners who bill by the hour, the time saved is seriously valuable. Sorry for calling it a scam before - was just having a bad day dealing with tax stuff.

One thing to watch out for with BC PST - if you're providing digital products or services, the rules can be different than for physical goods. I learned this the hard way last year. For digital services sold to BC customers, you generally need to charge PST. But the same digital service sold to customers outside BC (including US) is PST-exempt. Check out the BC gov website's bulletin PST 107 for the specific rules on telecommunications services which includes digital products. Don't make the same mistake I did and assume digital = exempt!

Quick heads up for anyone with BC small businesses - make sure you're also keeping track of where YOUR suppliers are located. If you're buying stuff from other provinces or internationally, different input tax rules apply. For example, I was buying software from an Ontario company and they were charging me HST, which affects how I claim input tax credits compared to GST. And when I buy from US suppliers, there's no GST/HST charged but I might pay duties or import taxes depending on what I'm buying. Tracking this stuff from day one saves massive headaches at tax time!!