REGINA — Amendments have been announced to the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) regulations this week, aimed at providing greater clarity to farmers and to ensure the PST is applied fairly and consistently to farming and agricultural goods and services.
"After speaking with agricultural organizations in our province, we heard concerns that PST was inconsistently applied to farming and agricultural activity," Deputy Premier and Finance Minister Donna Harpauer said in a news release.
The changes to the PST regulations “will be more equitable, consistent and protect farmers against perceived 'PST creep' in farming activity."
According to the province, the new PST exemptions were made through regulation changes and took effect on April 1, 2022. The exemptions include:
- prefabricated wind breaker panels for use in the protection and handling of livestock;
- insulators for electrified livestock fences;
- certain farm equipment attached to a registered vehicle; and
- on-farm dugout excavation and for trenching (in specific circumstances related to farming).
It was also clarified the following products are also exempt from PST retroactive to April 1, 2016:
- water storage tanks used in spraying or irrigating crops;
- storage tanks for weed control chemicals, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, liquid fertilizer;
- adjuvants that improve their efficacy or application;
- portable seed cleaners used on-farm by farmers in preparing their crop for storage or market (farmers in the business of seed cleaning must pay PST on their seed cleaning equipment); and
- farm tractors.
The estimated annual cost of the changes is about $1 million. The province states Ministry of Finance is also beginning discussions about modernizing the agriculture and farming section of PST legislation, which would potentially be considered for future budgets.
