Canada GST/HST Holiday Tax Break

Overview

The Government of Canada has announced a proposed measure to provide GST/HST relief on certain items from December 14, 2024, to February 15, 2025.

Non-eligible alcoholic beverage

• Alcoholic spirits and liqueurs
• Alcoholic beverages (other than beer, malt beverages, wine, cider, and sake) with more than 7% ABV

 

Non-POS Integrated locations

Tacit will run a script to adjust the GST/HST tax rate to 0.00% at all locations.

 

POS Integrated Locations

Veloce POS

Tacit calculates taxes and will apply a platform-wide tax override on the morning of Dec 14^th at 4 am EST for all locations. This override will be removed on Feb 15^th at 12 pm EST.

Maitre’D POS

Clients must update tax on POS and let Tacit know when the update is completed, and the menu config files are generated on Dec 14^th. Tacit will pull tax rate from POS after update is made and publish to delivery networks.

This update requires collaboration between the Maitre’D support team and the Tacit implementation team.

 

White-label Pickup and Delivery – All other POS

Pickup and Delivery – Clients are responsible for tax adjustments made on their POS.

Tacit relies on the POS to calculate order totals (where POS capabilities are available) and will get the taxes from the POS at the checkout.

Delivery Network/Marketplace for all POS Integrated Locations:

Delivery network service fees are not part of the Tacit integration- delivery networks manage them.

For all Delivery Network Integrations (including Skip The Dishes, DoorDash and Uber Eats), Tacit publishes the tax rate to the delivery network to apply when the user checks out on the delivery network.

Tacit will make the following updates:

• Skip The Dishes
  • Add Food category type to all non-alcohol categories (Tacit - manually)
  • Add the “holiday tax exempt” text in the menu item description for all Alcohol items that fall under exemption only (i.e. Tacit – Manually. You do not need to add this flag to food items)
  • Clients must verify that the non-tax-exempt alcohol items are marked correctly in the Tacit back-office and charged correctly in Skip the Dishes
• Door Dash and Uber Eats
  • Add tax override for Spirits Tax at the location level (to be done by the client)
  • Add Tax Rule “Spirits Tax” all items and modifiers that are not tax exempt (to be done by the client)

FAQ

1. Will there be any downtime involved? There will be no downtime involved in tax update.
   
   
2. Are there any action items required from clients? Clients are advised to make tax adjustments on their POS. Please work with your project managers to set up the Spirit Tax override at your locations and on applicable items/modifiers.
   
   
3. Will the receipt show $0.00 under taxes, or will it remove the taxes altogether? The tax will show as 0.00%/$0.00 on receipt based on the POS programming.
   
   
4. What if delivery networks apply the tax on Dec 14^th? If the tax is applied for food or tax-exempt alcohol, check the Tacit back office:
   
   Check if the location is using delivery network tax overrides:

• Go to Operations -> Delivery Networks -> Edit Settings -> Set Tax Override = Yes?
  • If yes, check that the tax rate defined for Uber Eats / DoorDash / Skip the Dishes is set to 0. Change to 0% and republish menus.
  • If no delivery network tax overrides, check if the restaurant / province tax is set to 0%; go to Brands & Locations -> Edit Location -> Taxes & Service Fees.

If the tax is not 0% for restaurant tax, carbonated beverage tax or alcohol tax, set to 0% and publish the update. Publish delivery network menus again.

5. What if delivery networks do not apply Spirits Tax to alcoholic non-exempt items?

In this case, check the back-office:

Check if the location is using delivery networks tax overrides:

• Go to Operations -> Delivery Networks -> Edit Settings -> Set Tax Override = Yes?
  • If yes, check that the Spirits Tax Rate is defined for Uber Eats / DoorDash / Skip the Dishes. Set the correct tax rate and republish menus.
  • If no delivery network tax overrides, check if the restaurant / province tax is set to 0%; go to Brands & Locations -> Edit Location -> Taxes & Service Fees.

If there is no tax rate defined for Spirits Tax, add the tax line with type Spirits Tax. Publish delivery network menus again.

• Check that spirits are correctly labeled with Spirits Tax at the item leve; go to Menus -> Select the master location > Go to menu item or modifier, add the Tax rate to the item and publish it.

 

How are taxes handled in the Tacit back office?

There are two possible options for setting up taxes for delivery networks in the Tacit back-office:

• Setup tax overrides for delivery networks only
• Use restaurant or province tax rates

Setup tax overrides for delivery networks

Tax overrides for delivery networks may be set up in the Operations tab -> Delivery Networks -> Edit Settings.

You use delivery networks tax overrides, if the Set Tax Override toggle is on. In this case, the tax sent to delivery networks is defined by delivery network in this pop-up.

Only some clients in Alberta / British Columbia are using the delivery networks tax overrides.

Using restaurant or province tax rates

If no delivery network tax overrides are set up, Tacit publishes to delivery networks the tax rates setup for the restaurant or province.

Carbonated Beverage Tax, Alcohol Tax and Spirits Tax apply only for those items that have this tax label applied at the menu item level.