On July 1, 2010, provincial governments in Ontario and BC moved to harmonize their provincial sales taxes (PST) with the federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) to create one harmonized sales tax (HST) that would apply to most goods and services.  While this change in tax policy proved to be unpopular with many residents in the two provinces, the HST is much less economically damaging than the old PST.

Despite the economic benefits of the HST over the PST, opponents of the harmonized tax have filled newspapers, broadcast media, and the blogosphere with inaccurate – and often outrageous – claims about the tax. Research published by the Fraser Institute explains the realities behind the misinformation about the HST.