In November 2024, the Government of Canada announced a proposal to suspend the national GST/HST for a period of two months, between December 14, 2024 and February 15, 2025. This temporary tax break is aimed at holiday essentials, like groceries, restaurant meals, drinks, snacks, children’s clothing, and gifts.

You won’t be able to change your new tax settings in advance to take effect on the day that the tax relief starts, so it’s recommended to make the changes in the Restaurant Manager after your close of business on the day prior to this initiative taking effect and to revert the changes after your close of business on the final day of the initiative.

To make your changes, you'll need to log in to the Restaurant Manager and edit your tax rate according to your province.

Editing your sales tax rates

1. Log in to Restaurant Manager.
2. Navigate to Products > Categories.
3. Open a category that qualifies for the tax relief.
4. Select the new Tax Rate specific to your province from the dropdown list.
5. Click Ok to save your changes.
6. Repeat for all eligible categories to ensure the new tax rate is applied to all categories specified in the government guidelines.
7. Clear the cache on each of your POS devices to reload it.
8. Process a sample transaction to confirm the correct tax rates are being applied.

Ensure all devices have successfully refreshed with the new tax rates before processing any new sales to avoid discrepancies.

Restoring your tax profiles in 2025

To change the tax settings after close of business on the last day of this initiative, you can restore your categories to the earlier tax profiles.

Follow these steps to revert your categories to their original tax rates:

1. Log in to Restaurant Manager.
2. Navigate to Products > Categories.
3. Open a category that qualified for the tax relief.
4. Replace the Tax Rate with your standard tax rate in the Tax Rate dropdown.
5. Click Ok to save your changes.
6. Repeat for all eligible categories to ensure the usual tax rate is applied to all categories specified in the government guidelines.
7. Clear the cache on each of your POS devices to reload it.
8. Process a sample transaction to confirm the correct tax rates are being applied.

Ensure all devices have successfully refreshed with the new tax rates before processing any new sales to avoid discrepancies.

Please note that Lightspeed does not give tax advice. Any photos, images, graphics, written content, audio, video, files, materials, information, or any other data contained in this help document (the “Material”) are intended to be used solely for educational purposes, and Lightspeed makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, completeness, or suitability of the Material for any particular purpose. Lightspeed shall not be liable for any errors or omissions in the Material or for any actions taken by you which are based on or informed by the Material. Review the Department of Finance Canada website for up-to-date GST/HST tax relief information and consult a tax professional for regional rules and regulations.