On June 13, 2012, TEI submitted comments to the British Columbia Expert Panel on Business Taxation in response to an invitation for submissions to assist with developing recommendations "for a business tax system for British Columbia that balances the principles of competitiveness, fairness and simplicity." This most recent letter follows earlier communications between TEI and the government of British Columbia regarding the province's tax system. Those contacts came on the heels of a provincial referendum earlier in the year where residents of British Columbia approved a repeal of the Harmonized Sales Tax and a reinstatement of the PST that is scheduled to occur on March 30, 2013.
On November 15, 2011, Tax Executives Institute submitted a letter to the British Columbia Ministry of Finance containing a number of improvements to make the Provincial Sales Tax ("PST") more efficient and administrable. As a follow up to that letter, three members of TEI's Canadian Commodity Tax Committee met with officials from the Ministry on December 12 to further discuss the Institute's proposals.
The comments were prepared under the aegis of TEI's Canadian Commodity Tax Committee, whose chair is Kim N. Berjian of the ConocoPhillips Canada. Contributing substantially to the development of TEI's comments were David A. Card of Spectra Energy Corporation, Brian A. Moul of British Columbia Hydro & Power Authority, and Michael J. Willis of Lafarge Canada Inc. Daniel B. De Jong of the Institute's legal staff coordinated the development of the Institute's comments.