CRA confirms that landlords should apply ETA 232 to CECRA rent reductions

After describing the CECRA (COVID rent assistance) program, CRA noted:

• The forgivable loan made by CMHC is an exempt supply – no GST/HST is payable to the CMHC.
• The landlord should issue a credit note for the rent reduction in conformity with s. 232 so that, inter alia, it will not be required to remit GST/HST on the pre-reduction amounts.

Further points made by CRA (unrelated to CECRA):

• services of osteopathic manual practitioner (other than an osteopathic physician) are not exempted from GST/HST
• the new 20% B.C. sales tax on certain vapour products is not a “prescribed provincial levy,” so that GST is levied not only on the sale price but also on that sales tax
• after noting that it prevailed in Patterson Dental, CRA stated:

The CRA’s existing policy regarding the application of the GST/HST to drugs that are mixed substances or solutions is consistent with the decisions of the Courts.

Neal Armstrong. Summaries of Excise and GST/HST News - No. 108 September 2020 under ETA s. 123(1) – financial service - (c), s. 232(3)(a), Sched. V. Pt. II, s. 1 – practitioner, s. 154(2)(b), and Sched. VI, Pt. I, s. 2(e).