>>The way the tax is aplied depend on the place you "consume" the goods.
>>It is not a "resident" tax.
>>
>>If an visitor came to Canada and buy a hot-dog, a t-shirt or concert ticket, he have to pay the taxes because the goods are "consumed" here in the country.
>>
>>On the other side, if the same person command a t-shirt or a software online in a canadian site and the goods are shipped (or downloaded)outside of the country, there is no taxes - the goods are not "consumed" in Canada.
>>
>>For a service, there is no physical goods that was shipped outside of the country. So the gov assume that the service was provided "in" the country of the server - in Canada - and the taxes must be charged.
>>
>>If UT was a software, Michel may not have to charge taxes, but it's a service and he don't have the choice. May be he can release a "UT browser" and sell the software instead of membership to trick the law and avoid the taxes...
>
>The Canadian Tax dep. also do not seem to recognize that the content of the UT is the intellectual property of the (international) members.


The content is free anyway via the basic membership and you can acces your own messages or any members messages via the profile of the member (click on your name and select "message").

The premier membership give acces to advanced functionality of the site like the search. So, by definition, its a service.

Dont missunderstand me, I dont like this politic, I just try to explain it.