Why are Canadians so opposed to sale tax reforms?

[Nichlemn]

The introduction of GST under Mulroney and Harmonised Sales Taxes at the provincial level have all been highly unpopular.

Why? I don't much about the details, but it seems that a lot of opposition is a simple failure to understand tax incidence - the legal instance of a tax has no bearing on its economic incidence but most people don't realise this.

The other possibility is that the reforms have created some winners and some losers, but the losers make a bigger song and dance about it.

Does anyone have a good argument that these reforms were bad, not just misunderstood?

[Hatman 🍁]

People don't like taxes, duh.

[Nichlemn]

Yes, but these tax reforms as far as I'm aware were meant to be revenue neutral. Maybe they don't like visible taxes versus stealth taxes, but I file that under "stupid reasons".

[2952-0-0]

It's connected to the perception that politicians are liars and thieves (which is not unique to Canada). In BC, the Liberal Party specifically promised during the 2009 election campaign not to introduce the HST, and then introduced it a few weeks later. During last year's referendum campaign, the government's promise to lower the HST to 10% was seen as desperate lying, and the ballot's confusing wording was also seen to have been devious. If the Liberals promised to introduce a 10% total HST during the 2009 election campaign and had a more honest public perception, it would have passed without nearly so much controversy.

[Hatman 🍁]

It's also a tax that affects everyone. And, I'm not sure if I speak for most Canadians, but I'm against sales taxes in general because they're not proportionate to income (the term's progressive tax, right?) My general tax philosophy is that one of its purposes is to attempt to create equality among the public. Those who make more money than they deserve should be taxed more.

[Nichlemn]

It's also a tax that affects everyone. And, I'm not sure if I speak for most Canadians, but I'm against sales taxes in general because they're not proportionate to income (the term's progressive tax, right?) My general tax philosophy is that one of its purposes is to attempt to create equality among the public. Those who make more money than they deserve should be taxed more.

But these reforms aren't replacing income taxes with sales taxes, they're simply changing the way a type of sales tax is structured. From what I can gather, the main source of grief appears to be that "businesses paid" the original taxes while "consumers pay" the new taxes. But tax incidence theory proves this to be irrelevant - the incidence of the tax is shared by the firm and the consumer in the same way regardless of who is actually responsible for paying it.