Starting on July 1st, you will pay less for feminine hygiene products as the government announced that they will be exempting goods and services tax (GST) and harmonized sales tax (HST) on “a supply of a product that is marketed exclusively for feminine hygiene purposes and is a sanitary napkin, tampon, sanitary belt, menstrual cup or other similar product.”
There has been a lot of pressure on the government to remove the tax on feminine hygiene products but considering they made $36,398,387 in taxes on feminine hygiene products last year, they have been slow to make any changes. Several provinces still charge the provincial portion of the tax on these products and have not yet announced any changes to the tax.
Great to hear!
Although any tax removal appears to be good on the surface it is likely just going to be shifted to those that don’t use the service or product. The fact that toothpaste which could be considered a universal hygiene product remains taxable leave me with the impression that the tax removal is more of response to political pressure rather than a policy change.
Most of the pressure was that the tax is discriminatory since it only taxes women and some provinces got rid of the provincial portion for the same reason. It is definitely political pressure though, people have campaigned for the change for many years (prompting the provinces) but it is an election year and female MPs threatened to boycott certain votes if it didn’t go through