And young people can once again afford to buy without needing parents who can pay the bill for them?
B.C. 15% Tax on Foreigners
- Thread starter SkyRider
- Start date
Given how expensive some of our large cities have become this could be a way to tamp down demand in NY, San Fran and especially Miami
Do you think that the PRC or America or any other country for that matter spends any time worrying about the rights of Canadians or that Canadians might be discriminated against. I think that most countries put the interest of their citizens first and are very protectionist. The PRC understands that Canada is a big fat dumb cow that is to be milked and privately laugh and wonder why the Canadian government is hapless.
Doesn't the US already do this in Florida? Canadians pay all kinds of extra taxes.
I had heard something like that. I also heard Arizona has some sort weird property tax system as well. Somebody I know said he got around the Arizona tax by using a corporation to buy his house.
Those are your emotions speaking.
The discrimination is not based on ethnicity or other protected grounds. It is based on residency and non-citizenship. Pretty much all taxation is based on these factors.
And unless there is a trade treaty covering real estate between countries, governments ahve always used taxes and duties to manipulate domestic economic policies.
Again with the feelings.
If you got out a bit more around the world from behind your computer screen you'd know that there are a multitude of complex restrictions and taxes on non-citizen/non-resident ownership in many, if not most countries.
Why 15%? Why not 50%? Why not just ban foreigners from buying Vancouver real estate?
(Presumably, money from foreigners buying real estate goes into the B.C. economy. Is this a bad thing? Let say I sell my house for $5 million to a foreigner and I spend the $5 million on Canadian wine, women and song.)
(Presumably, money from foreigners buying real estate goes into the B.C. economy. Is this a bad thing? Let say I sell my house for $5 million to a foreigner and I spend the $5 million on Canadian wine, women and song.)
SkyRider is right, Toronto and Vancouver are different because they are truly racist out there.
British Columbia has always been anti-Chinese. British Columbia still run by racists, plain and simple.
Are you just trolling or are you just that simple and dense?
First off, between 15% and 50%.
You don;t want to KILL the market either by punitive taxation or by banning foreign ownership.
By applying a 15% tax, this may dampen down a market that is driven by foreign interests rather than the ability of local residents to live in on local wages.. This market is quickly pricing residents out of not just owning, but renting a place to live that is sustainable on local wages.
Unlike an outright ban, a 15% tax will generate revenue into the local government that will help benefit local residents.
And IF YOU had the wherewithall to have acquired and sold a $5m property, you would not be spending it on "wine, women and song". Your posts and arguments clearly demonstrate this is not applicable to you.
It's already getting that way if you haven't noticed. The 'millennials' in Vancouver and Toronto can ill afford to buy a property in their own birthplace without incurring major debt thanks to large foreign investments and money laundering.
This should be a federal tax and country wide like that in Australia.
Umm, China does have all kinds of laws about foreigners buying land there. For example you must have lived there for a year before even being allowed to buy.
Bullshit... it is unfair to let foreigners drive up the real estate prices so much that Canadians can't afford to live in their own city.
This tax is nothing more than a government attempt at price control which history has shown time and again is a recipe for disaster. They tried it with wheat, oil, gas, steel, rental apartments, etc. etc. All ended in disasters.
It won't become that cheap to buy RE again (in vancouver or toronto), even with a crash.
When the US economy tanked in 2008, it didn't allow most people to rush into Manhattan to scoop up property.
Actually some of the offshore money is in a position to handle the 15% surcharge imposed on them. In the Greater Vancouver area, there are insufficient amounts of Canadians to purchase properties at this time anyway so the effect of the tax on foreign buyers may be tepid at best. Had the tax been imposed ten years ago then it might have been effective. There are ways around the tax anyway, foreigners can collude with Canadian citizens to purchase properties . The foreign tax may be just for show to appease disgruntled Canadians who cannot compete in the housing market driving by supply and demand. Brexit is already driving foreign capital into Canada, though not at nearly the same rate as from the PRC. Either way the Canadian government is incompetent and ineffective and does move in a way is in the best interest of Canadians.
The question is whether the government will keep raising the rate until it has its "desired effect". 15% might be only the beginning of the slippery slope.
Blaming foreigners and/or rich people is the oldest political game in the world.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...b-c-tax-aimed-at-foreign-homebuyers-1.3695479
I think eventually they will also impose a foreign buyer tax here in Toronto. If it works in Vancouver then they will impose it because, well, it works. If it doesn't work over there they will probably still impose it to get that tax money.
Interesting article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bc-foreign-homebuyer-tax-housing-market-toronto-1.3696511
"As a Canadian or permanent resident, I could set up a company and fully capitalize it with foreign money and there's nothing stopping me from buying up as many properties as I wish without paying any of this tax," Eby said in an interview.
In other words, foreigners could potentially still acquire Vancouver-area homes free of the new tax through a corporation, as long as the majority of the voting shares are domestically controlled, even if none of the equity shares are (which is a common-enough corporate structure used in firms like Google, Facebook and Bombardier to keep effective control in the hands of the company founders).
Another loophole is that the new tax doesn't apply to pre-sale condos and homes, Eby said, which means foreign speculators can still snatch up properties under development and then flip them later, as long as it's done before construction is completed and the new homes are inscribed on the provincial property registry.
I think eventually they will also impose a foreign buyer tax here in Toronto. If it works in Vancouver then they will impose it because, well, it works. If it doesn't work over there they will probably still impose it to get that tax money.
Interesting article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bc-foreign-homebuyer-tax-housing-market-toronto-1.3696511
"As a Canadian or permanent resident, I could set up a company and fully capitalize it with foreign money and there's nothing stopping me from buying up as many properties as I wish without paying any of this tax," Eby said in an interview.
In other words, foreigners could potentially still acquire Vancouver-area homes free of the new tax through a corporation, as long as the majority of the voting shares are domestically controlled, even if none of the equity shares are (which is a common-enough corporate structure used in firms like Google, Facebook and Bombardier to keep effective control in the hands of the company founders).
Another loophole is that the new tax doesn't apply to pre-sale condos and homes, Eby said, which means foreign speculators can still snatch up properties under development and then flip them later, as long as it's done before construction is completed and the new homes are inscribed on the provincial property registry.
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