TOareaFan
Superstar
Struggling with that.....not sure there is any reason a new sales tax would require an expiry date?
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Struggling with that.....not sure there is any reason a new sales tax would require an expiry date?
Not unless the tax is going to expire. 
TOareaFan
Superstar
Mapleson
Active Member
May 1 marked the beginning of the HST transitional period. July 1 is the full implementation date. Between May 1 and July 1, you will not be charged HST for "Passenger transportation passes if the pass period begins before July 2010 and ends before August 2010" else charged HST for the portion of the passes that are used later.
Municipal and Provincial transit (GO/TTC) do/will not charge PST/HST. The Feds need to fix VIA Rail for their costs to stay near everyone else. Did you know VIA has a mimimum ticket price for all passengers? I'm assuming the expiration was supposed to be transitional, but I wouldn't be suprised if they keep it around.
Municipal and Provincial transit (GO/TTC) do/will not charge PST/HST. The Feds need to fix VIA Rail for their costs to stay near everyone else. Did you know VIA has a mimimum ticket price for all passengers? I'm assuming the expiration was supposed to be transitional, but I wouldn't be suprised if they keep it around.
nfitz
Superstar
If your using VIA passes for travel for work, then wouldn't the HST be refundable on your income tax return, like the GST is now?
Swarley
Active Member
Not if it's just commuting to work I don't think.
TOareaFan
Superstar
That all makes sense but there is nothing there that makes me take the logic step to "oh, yeah then, let's have them expire a year after issue" my read of what you have excerpted from the transitional rules says they are to be charged HST if they expire after August 10...that would be so whether or not the expiry date was August 11 or 1 year from issue or "upon use of the last ticket in the book"....unless I am totally misunderstanding this. HST is also a very minor component on the price hike I saw....like I say I use them infrequently so I have no idea how gradual (ie how many hikes there have been) but this little convenience ticket increased in price from $58 to $91...so 57% in about 18 months....it seems awfully convenient for the ticket agents to be blaming the HST for, both, the huge increase and the expiry date on the coupons.
Like I said, no big deal on a personal level but I always viewed these GO/VIA paks as an indicator of two agencies patching together a little bit of fare and service integration.....seems like they have drifted away from that and that is the part that is too bad.
GraphicMatt
Looking forward to a FRESH START for Toronto
Since these packs are for a set number of rides and not a dollar value (like a gift card), couldn't you sit on a never-expiring pass for a couple of years, wait for fares to increase, and then sell it to another user at a profit?
Justin10000
Banned
Shh!
TOareaFan
Superstar
Yeah I guess.....but there seems to be a lot easier ways to make money than that! Even so, what concern would that be of VIA's and why does GO not have the same concern?
If that is the real reason VIA has these passes expiring, I would suggest they spend more time thinking about running a train service than trying to out-think the very small percentage of the population that would see VIA/GO Paks as their path to being the next Warren Buffet!
nfitz
Superstar
Not if it's your primary place of employment. If your office and home is in, say, Brantford, and you travel to another site in, say, Toronto once or twice a week then it's refundable. Basically if you can claim it as an employment expense, you can also get the GST/HST refunded.
Can't imagine that there are too many people working 5-days a week travelling VIA ... but I'm often shocked at what I find people doing.
Platform 27
Active Member
Anecdotally, I can point to one person I knew who used to commute daily from Brantford to Toronto on Via. This comes with the usual caveat that the plural of anecdote is not data.
hkric88
Active Member
Here's a thought - It seems that these farecards actually have some amount of storage capability. This would explain why Presto has said that for TTC stations, cards must first be tapped against a fare checker machine first in order to 'push' the updated fare to the card. Perhaps to facilitate greater flexibility and reliability, the farecard actually stores its fare so that if it encounters a machine that is not immediately connected to the network (i.e bus devices especially), it is still able to work.
This means the chip is active instead of passive. A passive chip will work theoretically forever, however one with actual store ability (and it would have to be similar to flash memory), especially working under such low voltages, would probably wear out over time. Perhaps this expiry date is the safe amount of time for the memory durability..
This means the chip is active instead of passive. A passive chip will work theoretically forever, however one with actual store ability (and it would have to be similar to flash memory), especially working under such low voltages, would probably wear out over time. Perhaps this expiry date is the safe amount of time for the memory durability..
TOareaFan
Superstar
Good point but, in a similar direction, whenever I did ride the VIA to work using the formerly reasonable Pak......it struck me how many people on that train were the same people I would see every time I road it....so there probably is some data ....but not too be drawn from your and my limited observations.
DavidJamesTO
Active Member
That's probably one of the reasons why; according to the PRESTO website:
"Each PRESTO card is embedded with a chip containing security keys that have a predefined expiry period. By renewing PRESTO cards every 4 years, cardholders will benefit from evolving levels of security and features. This expiry period is a global standard for all chip cards."
https://www.prestocard.ca/StaticContent/Faq#Q39