I was just looking at my cell phone bill from Fido, and I think they are charging me GST incorrectly!
Invoice Date: December 26, 2007
Fido Service $80.05 (for services Dec 27/07 to Jan 26/08)
GST $5.11
PST $5.60
Total $90.76
At first, I thought--> This is now 2008, shouldn't GST be only 5%?
So I called Fido, and I was told
"Since your invoice is dated on Dec 26, 2007, you are still charged the old rate. Your next bill will be charged 5% GST"
I said,
"Well my billing cycle is from Dec 26/07 to Jan 26/08, there's only 5 days of service in 2007! And since the rest of the days are in 2008, shouldn't it be pro-rated?"
Fido representative
"Sorry, it doesn't work that way"
Any accountants here? Is this really true?
Anywaz..then I realized Fido is currently charging me 6.3835% of GST....
6% GST should be $4.803
I know it's only a few cents.. but I am just very puzzled how they can screw up taxes..@@..
So you might want to double check your invoices for this month!
With Fido, you are actually "Prepaying" for the month ahead, that's why you see the line "(for services Dec 27/07 to Jan 26/08)". The bill is in fact correct because the invoice is dated at December 26, 2007; which is still 6%. The new 5% GST does not start until 2008. On your next bill, you will see the new taxes.
I guess Fido just doesn't know how to explain it to you.
Because 5% GST is subject to any invoice started on Jan 1, 2008.
Anything before that, it still 6% even though you receive your invoice after Jan 1, 2008.
As long as the invoice date show that it's before 2008, there is no argument.
I actually called a vendor this morning to tell him adjust his invoice date since he is stupid enough to put enter date as invoice date. He is just a very small company, don't want to rip him off, so I asked him to change back to Nov, 2007 (since that's the month they provided us the service).