A historical change has taken place for Huu-ay-aht First Nations (HFN) Citizens regarding taxation exemptions on Treaty Settlement Lands as of November 13, 2023. The termination of the Huu-ay-aht FNGST agreement (which was slated to take effect December 31, 2023), officially ceases to exist and is no longer in effect. The HFN government has taken necessary steps to make the exemption available again to citizens in a timely manner.
What this means for Huu-ay-aht citizens is, Huu-ay-aht will return to the original taxation exemption status prior to the Maa-nulth treaty which came into effect April 1, 2011.
Specifically, both GST and PST will remain exempt for HFN Citizens and the December 31 FNGST will NO longer take effect.
In 2022, Canada changed its long-standing policy that required modern treaties to phase out the tax exemptions in Section 87 of the Indian Act. On effective date the Maa-nulth Treaty required the sales, income, and property tax exemptions phased out. The sales tax exemptions ended in 2019, and the income and property tax exemptions are scheduled to end December 31,, 2023.
However, through negotiations with the Federal and Provincial Governments modern treaty nations may now choose to maintain the exemption for as long as they want and take up direct tax jurisdiction when or if they choose to.
This amendment puts tax jurisdiction back into the hands of treaty governments.
It gives Huu-ay-aht First Nations (HFN) government the flexibility to choose when to draw down taxation authority as part of the self-governance and self-determination HFN has under treaty.