Ontario Liberals pledge to remove HST from prepared food under $20

The Ontario Liberals are proposing to remove the provincial portion of the HST from prepared food purchases under $20.

Currently, the HST exemption for prepared foods maxes out at $4, and Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca says the proposed measure would save money for families adding food such as rotisserie chicken to their groceries or an office worker grabbing lunch from a local restaurant.

The Liberals say they would pay for the move by increasing taxes on wealthy Ontarians and highly profitable corporations.

They would add a 1% surtax on companies operating in Ontario whose profits exceed $1 billion a year, which they say would generate about $150 million a year.

The Liberals also propose to implement a 2% income tax increase on individuals earning incomes of more than $500,000 a year.

They say that would create a new tax bracket of 15.16% on individual income above that threshold—affecting 0.2% of Ontarians—and generate more than $350 million in annual revenue.