GST/HST for digital economy businesses

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• Find out if you need to register for the GST/HST: GST/HST for digital economy businesses
• Get ready to register for the GST/HST: GST/HST for digital economy businesses
• Register for the GST/HST: GST/HST for digital economy businesses
• How to charge and collect the tax: GST/HST for digital economy businesses
• Complete and file a return: GST/HST for digital economy businesses
• Pay (remit) the tax you collected: GST/HST for digital economy businesses
• Notification and information reporting: GST/HST for digital economy businesses
• Contact us: GST/HST for digital economy businesses

Notification and information reporting

The Supply of qualifying goods in Canada (also known as “qualifying tangible personal property supply”) and platform-based short-term accommodation have additional reporting obligations under these measures.

Storage service providers

Notification and record keeping

If you are a business, such as a fulfillment warehouse, that provides storage services in Canada for goods that non-resident vendors offer for sale, you must notify the CRA of your:

• business name
• business number
• business address

You had to tell us this information:

• by January 1, 2022, if you supplied the storage services as part of a business you carried on as of July 1, 2021; and
• in any other case, within six months after the day you last began supplying the storage services as part of your business, or any later day the CRA may allow.

You can submit this information digitally in My Business Account. To do so, click on your GST/HST account number in the Navigation Menu, and then click on “Submit a PDF form with an electronic signature.”

Or you can mail this information to:

Prince Edward Island Tax Centre
275 Pope Road
Summerside PE C1N 6A2

Information return

As part of Budget 2021, the Government of Canada enacted new legislative measures that require the following groups to register for, collect and remit the goods and services tax / harmonized sales tax (GST/HST):

• non-resident vendors that supply digital products or services (including traditional services) to consumers in Canada,
• distribution platform operators facilitating those supplies to Canadian consumers, and
• accommodation platform operators facilitating supplies of short-term accommodation in Canada

The new legislation also requires the following groups to file information returns:

• accommodation platform operators in respect of a supply of short-term accommodation situated in Canada in a calendar year, and
• distribution platform operators in respect of a qualifying tangible personal property supply made in a calendar year

These requirements are outlined in sections 211.21 and 211.25 of the Excise Tax Act.

More recently, the federal government proposed implementing the Model Rules that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development developed for reporting by digital platform operators on platform sellers. Because of this and until further notice, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) does not require platform operators to file the information returns outlined in Budget 2021.

The CRA is taking measures to help businesses and platform operators meet these new GST/HST obligations by using a prospective approach to compliance except for egregious cases of non compliance.

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