Tax is the part of the business nobody signed up for, and the part the CRA cares about most. This tells you the rate for your province, the tax on a given price, and whether you are past the point where registering stops being optional.
How this is calculated
Harmonized provinces charge one blended HST rate; the rest charge 5% federal GST and handle their provincial tax separately. If your price already includes tax we divide it back out — price ÷ (1 + rate) — instead of stacking tax on top of tax. The registration line compares your revenue against the $30,000 small-supplier threshold.
When registration stops being optional
The CRA calls you a small supplier while your gross taxable revenue stays at $30,000 or less over four consecutive calendar quarters. It is a rolling window, not a calendar year, and the test never stops running. Cross it and you must register within 29 days of your effective date of registration. If a single calendar quarter alone pushes you past $30,000, you stop being a small supplier on the sale that crossed the line and owe tax from that sale on. Services, product sales, and booth rent paid to you all count toward the number. Voluntary tips do not.
Tax-inclusive vs tax-exclusive pricing
A $40 sign on the wall means one of two things. Tax-exclusive: the client taps $45.20 in Ontario and your service revenue is $40. Tax-inclusive: the client taps $40 and your service revenue is $35.40, because $4.60 of it belongs to the CRA. Both are legal. Picking one and never being sure which is how shops end up short at filing time. Round-number pricing is the usual reason to go inclusive — just build the rate into the menu price rather than eating it.
How BarberFlow handles the rates
Tax is set per location, so a shop in Halifax rings up 14% and a shop in Calgary rings up 5% without anyone remembering to change a setting. Products and services can carry different rates — which is the whole game in BC, where the haircut is GST-only and the pomade owes PST too. Collected tax is tracked separately from revenue all the way through to your books, so the number you owe is a number you can read.