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Yvonne Jones, MHA for the District of Cartwright L’Anse Au Clair and
Opposition Critic for Health and Community Services has called upon
government to review the HST applied to private home care in view of the
fact that this tax is exempt for home care services provided by government.
The Liberal MHA questioned government on this matter last week in the House
of Assembly, highlighting the unfairness of this policy for those who have
to purchase these costly services from personal funds.
"Government is demanding that people pay taxes on these important
services when similar services subsidized by government are HST exempt,"
says Jones. "It does not make sense to place this extra financial burden on
those individuals and families when the cost of the service itself is
expensive enough. Furthermore, all other medical services such as
physiotherapy, chiropractic, podiatry and dentistry are also excluded from
HST. Home care services are considered just as much a medical necessity as
these other services but the taxation policy does not reflect this reality.
"What is even more ridiculous about this taxation policy is that if a
person was allocated one hour a week from government and thirty-nine hours a
week were purchased from a private home care service, then this person would
not be expected to pay the HST because of that one hour. Yet, equally as
essential home care services paid for by individual families in this
province are charged full HST.
"This is a clear case of an unreasonable and an unfair government policy
and I have made the minister aware of my concerns in the House of Assembly.
I will continue to press to have this discriminatory policy evaluated and
appropriate changes made so that there is an equitable application of HST
exemption applied to the same service, no matter if government subsidizes it
or it is purchased by an individual. Anything less than that constitutes an
unnecessary discrimination in our health care system."
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