GST

Goods and Services Tax.

Australians will shortly be paying 10% more for basically everything.
Stay tuned for a Guide to the GST.

Also in Canada, one of the many unloved legacies of Brian Mulroney and his Tories.

Mulroney had to use an obscure section of the British North America Act, now called the Canada Act, the Canadian Constitution to appoint eight extra senators to get it past Parliament.

One of them was Wilbur Keon, the head of the Heart Institute at the University of Ottawa.

We've had GST for years in New Zealand and it hasn't killed us. Of course, it was scary when they implemented it... but it was a trifling matter to work out an extra 10% in one's head, so we accepted it and moved on.

...except that taxing us 10% on every single thing we bought or paid for wasn't enough, so it has been increased to 11.25%. I can add that tax on to a price with a bit of mental contortion, but I'm damned if I can work out the original prices in my head (why would I? I'll have to pay the GST anyway...).

However I maintain that ideologically, being taxed on money received, taxed again on money spent and älso taxed on money kept aside, is not the mark of a free and equitable society.