The provincial government is under fire for taking so long to roll out an Harmonized Sales Tax transition plan, a delay which critics say is killing business in many sectors.

Many consumers are holding off making big purchases until the HST is gone and new home sales are flat, decisions that are having negative effects on both business and consumers.

Bill Turner, 64, wants to buy a custom-built retirement home but signing the contract before the HST is repealed would cost him about $40,000 in tax he'll never get back.

"I assume if I go and buy this new home, whatever I agree to, I'm going to have to pay, and it's not recoverable. At least I'm not aware that it is, and that's going to force me to weigh very heavily whether I wait until 2013 to buy a new home," said Turner.

Turner is not the only B.C. resident frustrated by the delay in clawing back the HST. Home builders in the Greater Vancouver area say the delay in killing the HST has consumers sitting on their wallets. They're not buying new homes and they're holding off on big renovation projects – and that's hurting several related industries.

"It's not just the folks working on the sites with the hammers and the saws and the nail guns. It's also the folks working in the manufacturing sites around the Lower Mainland that produce the doors, windows, flooring and all the other things that go into the production of a new home, or renovation," said Peter Simpson of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders Association.

BC NDP leader Adrian Dix wants to know why it's taking so long to kill the HST.

"In Kamloops, Apex Construction says they sold 50 homes between 2005 and the day the HST came in, and three since then" said Dix.

But the Premier says they are working as fast as they can.

"We will do it in at least 18 months… If we can do it faster than that we absolutely will, but this is not some quick work of magic," said Premier Christy Clark during last Tuesday's Oral Question Period.

The Home Builders Association doesn't buy it.

"They certainly rolled this out in lightning-fast speed. There's no reason I believe why they can't roll it back just as expeditiously," said Simpson.

Potential home buyers like Bill Turner say B.C. residents have spoken when it comes to the HST and it's time for the Clark government to listen.

"I don't understand why we sit here and take this, and don't have some sort of form of recourse just to be able to tell them we don't want this here. I thought that's what we'd done and nobody's listening," said Turner.

The Home Builders' Association wants the Clark government to take immediate, temporary steps to neutralize the impact of the HST, things like reducing the Property Transfer Tax or offering tax credits to stimulate spending. But there's been no word from the Clark government on that front.

The Home Builders Association also says the uncertainty caused by the HST timetable is even putting some homeowners at risk.

They claim it's fueling an underground economy. Homeowners who need renovations are getting them done through cash transactions to avoid paying the HST and that means no contracts, no receipts and no recourse if the job isn't done right, or worse yet, if a worker is hurt on the job. In that case, the homeowner could be considered the contractor and would be responsible for covering the worker's medical costs.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Lynda Steele