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 are currently exempt from having to collect PST — including accounting and bookkeeping, architectural, engineering, geoscientist, commercial real-estate fees, and security and private investigation services — will be subject to the tax beginning Oct. 1.

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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.”

Chris Gardner, president and CEO of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association (ICBA), says the B.C. government “keeps finding new ways to make it more expensive to build.”

“Slapping PST on engineering, architecture, and professional services isn’t clever tax policy; it’s a hidden construction tax that will show up in every project budget in this province,” Gardner said

“Contractors will price it in, but ultimately, the people paying for housing will foot the bill.”

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.