Bakery & food tax checker

How it works

1. 1 Pick what you run. You start with what that kind of place usually sells, and each thing gets a verdict: no HST, tax-free at six or more, 5% under $4, or 13%.
2. 2 Tap a verdict to answer the one or two questions that decide it: how big, how it's sold, warm or cold, poured or bottled. Add your own items, and prices if you like.
3. 3 Ring up a test sale to watch the six-item and $4 rules work, then print a card for beside the till and set up the till buttons to match.

Free, with no account. Everything is worked out on this device. If you ask it to, this device remembers your menu for next time; test sales are never kept. Nothing is kept on ours.

Good to know

Is this tax advice?

No. Guidance, not tax advice. It follows CRA's GST/HST Memorandum 4.3, Basic Groceries and GI-064 on Ontario's rebate, and names the paragraph behind each verdict. Food rules have edge cases; where CRA's wording leaves room, the tool says (verify). If a lot rides on it, ask CRA or your bookkeeper.

Why are six muffins tax-free when five aren't?

CRA treats a sweet baked good under 230 g as a single serving, and single servings sold fewer than six at a time are taxed. Six or more in one sale are basic groceries, and they can be mixed: two bagels, two muffins and two doughnuts count as six (Memo 4.3, para 97). Ones wrapped individually stay taxed however many someone buys. A whole cake or pie, 230 g or more, has no HST at all.

What's the $4 rebate?

Ontario takes its 8% share of the HST off prepared food and drinks when the qualifying items in the sale come to $4 or less before tax, so they pay 5%. Pop, chips, candy and drinks under 600 mL only count when they're sold with food that qualifies, things that aren't food are left out of the sum, and alcohol never gets it (GI-064, Ontario).

What's the 90% rule?

When 90% or more of the food and drink a place sells gets HST anyway, CRA treats it like a restaurant: nearly everything it sells gets HST, even a bagel or a bottle of juice. Food that isn't for eating right away, and six or more baked goods that aren't eaten there, stay tax-free (Memo 4.3, paras 136–138). Cafés and food trucks are the ones it catches, so the tool asks.

Does eating in or taking out change it?

Mostly no. What decides it is the food and how it's sold: heated or kept hot, poured, a sandwich, a package of six. The exception is a 90% place, where six or more baked goods are only tax-free when they aren't eaten there (verify).

My till doesn't take the rebate off. What now?

Ask your till provider; many can apply it with a setting (verify). Until then, staff can ring the 5% by hand, which the till card shows. If a sale qualified and the rebate wasn't given, CRA's GI-064 says the customer can apply for it themselves, within four years (verify).

How should the receipt show it?

CRA allows the full 13% with the rebate shown apart, the HST net of the rebate, or a price that includes the HST at a net 5%. The counter test shows the first two.

What about a vending machine?

Food and drinks sold through a vending machine are taxed, with narrow exceptions (Memo 4.3, para 134).

Outside Ontario?

What's taxed and what's a basic grocery is federal, so the verdicts hold across Canada. The 13% rate and the $4 rebate are Ontario's; other provinces have their own rates and rebates (verify).

How do I print the card?

On US Letter, at 100% or “Actual size”, with headers and footers turned off. Two half cards print on one page: cut along the dashes. Print a new one when the menu changes; the date at the bottom says which is current.