IMPORTANT NOTICE TO BUSINESSES DEALING WITH NON-RESIDENT SUPPLIERS SUCH AS FACEBOOK AND GOOGLE
Since 2019, non-resident suppliers that provide services to Quebec consumers must be registered for and collect QST on such services. The federal government passed similar legislation for GST/HST which came in effect on July 1, 2021.
Non-resident suppliers who are required to register for GST/HST and QST under these new rules can do so using a simplified regime to reduce their administrative burden.
Revenu Quebec maintains a list of the non-resident suppliers that are registered for the QST under the simplified regime. Please click here to access the list of non-resident suppliers.
Non-resident suppliers that are registered under the simplified regimes, such as Facebook and Google, are only required to collect GST and QST on sales made to non GST/QST registrants. When dealing with these suppliers, GST/QST registrants must provide their GST and QST registration numbers in order to avoid being charged these taxes.
Please note that the QST registration number of the non-resident suppliers that are registered under the simplified regime starts with “NR”. A QST registrant should not be paying QST to a supplier whose QST registration number starts with the letters “NR”.
Registrants who paid sales taxes in error to non-resident suppliers registered under the simplified regime are not eligible for Input Tax Credits or Input Tax Refunds. In addition, registrants cannot claim a refund of GST or QST paid in error from the tax authorities. Requests for refunds must be made directly to the non-resident supplier. In practice, however, it might be difficult to obtain refund from the non-resident supplier.
If you have not done so already, we recommend updating your profile with these suppliers with your GST and QST account numbers as soon as possible to avoid paying sales taxes for which you may be out of pocket.