Excise and GST/HST News - No. 97 17 November 2015

Acupuncturists as practitioners

A person is considered to be licensed or certified to practise the profession of acupuncture if he or she is licensed or certified as an acupuncturist or as a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner by a provincially established regulatory body, if the acupuncture service is supplied in a province that regulates the profession of acupuncture. …

Currently, the profession of acupuncture is regulated under provincial legislation in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. If an acupuncture service is supplied in any of these provinces, the acupuncturist is required to be licensed by the regulatory body for the profession of acupuncture in that province in order to be a “practitioner” for GST/HST purposes (e.g., College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists of Ontario). …

[I]f an acupuncturist makes a supply of an acupuncture service in [other provinces]…the acupuncturist is required to have qualifications equivalent to those qualifications required to be licensed in a province where the profession is regulated… .

Psychotherapy services

Currently, there is no provision in the Act that specifically exempts from the GST/HST supplies of psychotherapy services or services rendered by a psychotherapist, even if the psychotherapist is licensed and renders the service in a province that regulates the profession of psychotherapy. …

[S]upplies of psychotherapy services rendered to an individual by a licensed physician or registered nurse, social worker, psychologist or occupational therapist will be exempt from the GST/HST if the supply meets the requirements in the relevant exemption and the supply is also a qualifying health care supply… .

Acupuncture services – need for patient relationship

Only services rendered by a practitioner of acupuncture to an individual within a practitioner-patient relationship are exempt from the GST/HST under the exemption for acupuncturists. This means that the practitioner must be a direct care provider of the patient and a relationship involving personal interaction between the practitioner and the patient must have been established for the exemption to apply. …

Overlapping exemptions (e.g., dentist/acupuncturist)

…[I]n some provinces a dentist may perform acupuncture services within the scope of practice for a dentist. In such a case, the exemption for medical practitioners under section 5 of Part II of Schedule V would apply and not the exemption under section 7 of this Part for an acupuncture service.

Importations of donor eggs

[S]upplies of human sperm and oocytes are not drugs that are included in section 2 of Part I of Schedule VI and therefore are not zero-rated under this section. In addition, section 5 of Part I of Schedule VI zero-rates supplies of human sperm. However, there is no corresponding provision in the Act that zero-rates supplies of human oocytes.

Design features must assist in coping with incontinence

To be an incontinence product specially designed for use by an individual with a disability, the product must be designed to absorb leakages, reduce odours, control bacteria, maintain dryness, and protect the individual against skin irritation. As such, the product must be designed using high-absorbency materials and typically have a sealed edge to ensure leakage protection. The fact that a product is reusable or disposable, or can be used by an individual who does not have a disability is not sufficient to change the characteristics of a product so that it is no longer considered to be an incontinence product specially designed for use by an individual with a disability.

…Examples of products that are not zero-rated under this provision include waterproof chair pads, sheets and mattress covers.

Children’s diapers…are not zero-rated… .

Joint tax adjustment transfer election amounts

Where an investment plan manager that is located outside Quebec and is not an SLFI for either GST/HST or QST purposes filed its GST/HST return(s) with the CRA and included QST amounts that were transferred to it by an SLFI investment plan as a result of a tax adjustment transfer election in its net tax calculation for GST/HST purposes, the plan manager would be required to correct its GST/HST return(s).