Tax Exemption Join the club: exercise your rights and shop online BY JAMIE MONASTYRSKI F or those First Nations people who do their shopping online, there is now an opportunity for them to shop tax-free. By joining the tax exemption club, it will allow First Nations people to shop online without being charged the harmonized sales tax, provincial sales tax or Goods and Services Tax. Entrepreneur Richard Cochrane, a citizen of Curve Lake First Nation, believes he created a solution for the digital age where First Nations people who prefer to shop online can avoid the headache of paperwork and save money, and corporations can build a relation- ship with First Nations consumers. “Online shopping in Canada is growing at a rate of 15 per cent per year, and there are no signs of it slowing down,” Cochrane said. “It’s the wave of the future.” Legally, First Nations people who purchase items online and have them shipped to a First Nation are exempt from taxes on purchases. However, Cochrane says most online retailers do not have a process that removes taxes, leaving shoppers no other choice but to submit their receipts to the Ontario Ministry of Finance to get a refund. And in most cases the process can take longer than three months. It all started in 2016 when Coch- rane was bedridden after a knee surgery and started shopping online. He noticed quickly that using his tax exemption status wasn’t easy, and began working on a solution. “The stores that did have processes had poor ones. It took them at least a week to process the trans- action for me,” he told CBC. “I realized then what First Nations people in this country have to deal with daily shopping online.” According to Cochrane, his business Status Exempt is intended to expedite that process. The process is simple. First Nations shoppers register online. Their Indian status cards and addresses are checked, and then they get login credentials. When they shop, retailers that offer the service will take the tax off immediately. First Nations shoppers will benefit by saving money and through its sheer convenience and easy-to-use interface. Service is free for First Nations people who register, and Cochrane says it takes about five minutes to validate the status card and address. For merchants, it’s an opportunity for them to tap into an emergent market and increase their sales, but it also allows them to “give back” to the First Nations by being good corporate citizens. “This is a huge opportunity for online merchants to increase their sales by providing this service,” Coch- rane said. “By giving shoppers a tax exempt shopping experience, it will give merchants a competitive advantage over any other online retailer. But the merchants are also saying it’s the right thing to do in terms of corporate responsibility.” Cochrane’s background includes being a banker in downtown Toronto, an analyst in the Aboriginal Banking Unit at the Bank of Montreal, and graduating from the University of Windsor with a Bachelor of Commerce, specializing in Finance, Accounting and Entrepreneurship. In a year, he hopes to have 50,000 First Nations e-commerce shoppers signed up and 100 e-commerce stores using his service. For more information, visit statusexempt.ca/ INDIGENOUS TECH Richard Cochrane, founder, Status Exempt SUMMER/WINTER 2018/19 – Chiefs of Ontario Advocate magazine   40  l