We’re only a couple of weekends away from the beginning of what the federal government is calling a tax holiday but in the eyes of some businesses, it might better be labelled a tax nightmare.

Dan Kelly, President and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, says owners are not happy with the situation. They’re faced with a mountain of work and uncertainty at the busiest time of year, and have to reset their point-of-sale systems.

And he says not even the authors of the tax break have the information his members are looking for.

Take, for instance, the owner of a hobby store he spoke with who has about 3,500 items in his shop.

“He has to go through each and every one of them and make a judgement call as to whether it’s going to be temporarily taxable or not taxable,” says Kelly.

“So the model airplane looks like it’s not going to be taxed during that window, but the paint and the glue to put the thing together—we don’t know because Ottawa can’t even give us an answer yet as to whether that’s going to be taxed.”

He says it appears that if you sell LEGO, which is oriented at kids, that is not taxable, but LEGO oriented at adults is.