QuickBooks Group Tax Rate

Which sales need a group rate

Canada has three kinds of province for sales tax. Alberta and the territories charge GST only. New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island charge HST, which is a single harmonized rate. British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec charge GST plus their own provincial tax, administered separately.

Only the third kind puts two taxes on one line, so only those provinces need a group. The CRA’s current rate table lists the pairs as GST 5% with PST 7% in British Columbia, PST 7% in Manitoba, PST 6% in Saskatchewan, and QST 9.975% in Quebec.

A single-rate sale should use the single code. An Alberta customer gets GST on its own, and an Ontario customer gets HST ON. Using a group where one rate applies, or a single code where two apply, puts the wrong amount in front of one of the agencies.

How Applicable on changes the tax

When you build a group, Intuit’s steps have you pick the first rate, whose Applicable on setting is "greyed out and defaulted to Net amount." For the second and any later rate, you choose what it applies to: "Net amount, Tax amount, or Net + Tax amount."

That choice is the difference between the two taxes being calculated side by side or one being stacked on the other. On a $400 British Columbia sale, a group with PST set to Net amount gives $20.00 of GST and $28.00 of PST, $48.00 in total. Set PST to Net + Tax amount and QuickBooks charges 7% of $420.00, or $29.40, for $49.40 in total.

British Columbia’s small business guide to PST is clear that PST is charged on the price before GST, and Stripe calculates each exclusive tax rate as the rate times the line’s post-discount amount, so both taxes use the same base. For a group fed from Stripe, every component after the first should be set to Net amount. A stacked setting overstates the provincial tax on every two-tax sale, a little at a time.

Default combined codes, and when to build your own

Intuit says QuickBooks Online "automatically sets up a list of common Canadian sales tax codes for you," and that list includes combined codes such as GST/PST BC at 12% and GST/QST QC at 14.975%.

Check them before you rely on them. As of this writing, Intuit’s published list shows PST MB at 8% (GST/PST MB 13%), PST SK at 5% (GST/PST SK 10%) and HST NS at 15%. The CRA’s table shows 7%, 6% and 14%, and notes that Nova Scotia’s HST fell to 14% on April 1, 2025. That may be a stale help article rather than stale codes in your file, so open each group under Manage sales tax and compare its components with the CRA table.

If a default is wrong, you cannot fix it in place. Intuit’s note on editing rates says "You will not be able to edit any QuickBooks Online default tax rates," and its article on removing rates adds that rates created automatically by adding a province "can’t be deactivated" and that "it’s not possible to delete a sales tax rate completely." The route is a new component rate under the agency, using Add custom rate, then a new group built from it.

Create that rate under the agency, not as the general Custom tax type. Intuit warns that Custom codes "will not report to Federal or Provincial Tax Agencies like the Canada Revenue Agency," which removes the one thing a group is for.

Reading a group on reports

Because each component belongs to an agency, the group itself never appears as a liability. In Sales Tax, the CRA’s figure carries the GST half of every grouped sale and the provincial agency carries the other half.

That gives a simple check for a Stripe-fed file. For a month of two-tax sales, Stripe’s tax reporting gives you GST and the provincial tax as separate totals. The QuickBooks liability for each agency should match its Stripe total, and the two together should equal the tax on the synced sales.

If the sum matches but the split does not, a group has the wrong components. If the provincial figure runs slightly high on every sale, look for a component set to Net + Tax amount.