British Columbia Rewrites Bulletin on Buying and Selling Businesses

British Columbia’s Ministry of Finance has completed a revision of the entire document, British Columbia Bulletin PST 005, “Buying and Selling a Business”.  The previous version was issued November 2014.

The bulletin discusses important definitions and provides a general overview of the sale of business assets.  Also noted are examples of taxable assets, including affixed machinery, and non-taxable assets, including franchise fees, goodwill, inventory, and real property.  The bulletin has sections with information about paying and remitting British Columbia PST on various types of transactions, as well as the requirement for a purchaser to obtain a clearance certificate issued by the Ministry of Finance from the vendor when purchasing a business.