B.C. Budget 2026: Business group criticizes expansion of PST base

B.C.’s budget has expanded the province’s sales tax base, a move one group says will hurt small businesses.

Several professional services that were previously exempt from having to collect PST — including accounting and bookkeeping, architectural, engineering, geoscientist, commercial real-estate fees, and security and private investigation services — are now subject to the tax.

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Kalith Nanayakkara, senior policy analyst for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), tells 1130 NewsRadio this is a move in the wrong direction.

“Small businesses have been facing cost pressures from all angles, and a big one has been the pressures coming from the cost of taxes and regulation,” Nanayakkara said.

“Small businesses and the business community in general was advocating for the PST to be scrapped off of capital investments. Instead, we’re seeing an expanded PST.”

Everything is going to cost more, he says, and small businesses will suffer.

“We were looking for one sign from the province, and that was that B.C. is open for business and that we want to attract business,” he said.

“We want entrepreneurs to stay here and we want to see B.C.’s economy grow. Unfortunately, we’re seeing a record-breaking deficit today and an expanded PST that only hurts our economy.”

Nanayakkara says that more and more British Columbians want to support local, but the tax expansion will discourage that.

The provincial government says the move aligns with how other provinces tax those services. As well, it is adding a new temporary 15 per cent manufacturing and processing investment refundable tax credit for any business investing in buildings, machinery, and equipment used in manufacturing and processing.