Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign home buyers
marketwatch.com
Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign home buyers
1–10 of 13 posts
Re: Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign home buyers
#2I wonder what the cost is to acquire a company incorporated in Canada and if the new tax takes those kinds of shenanigans into account. Here in California, buying a company that owns property is much cheaper in Prop 13 terms than buying property.
Re: Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign home buyers
#3I grew up in West Vancouver and there are countless neighborhoods and streets with empty million dollar houses. I remember they would go on sale and within a few days they'd be off the market, sold $30,000 - $100,000 above asking price. This has driven up prices to ridiculous heights. The average salary in Vancouver for a Software Engineer is around 75K, yet the price for a detached single family home is around $1,500,000. I don't think there is anyway for a single working family to afford a single detached house anywhere in Metro Vancouver area. This was long overdue
Re: Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign home buyers
#4I wonder what the cost is to acquire a company incorporated in Canada and if the new tax takes those kinds of shenanigans into account. Here in California, buying a company that owns property is much cheaper in Prop 13 terms than buying property.
Probably negligible, in comparison to paying the 15% tax. There's always a loophole. Incorporating a Canadian company is easy enough, especially given most properties tend to already be held through SPVs. In most countries you have to pay local capital gains tax on properties anyway.
To combat holding properties through companies, one would have to look at the ultimate beneficial owner of a corporation, which can often be hard to do / verify.
Re: Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign home buyers
#5I grew up in West Vancouver and there are countless neighborhoods and streets with empty million dollar houses. I remember they would go on sale and within a few days they'd be off the market, sold $30,000 - $100,000 above asking price. This has driven up prices to ridiculous heights. The average salary in Vancouver for a Software Engineer is around 75K, yet the price for a detached single family home is around $1,50…
And how does this get local people into those empty homes?
Re: Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign home buyers
#6> The province will also allow the City of Vancouver to impose an annual vacancy tax on some residential properties that are left uninhabited.
That seems like a great idea. Just throwing out an idea that could be terrible, why not tax all people who don't personally live in their home? That would effectively be a discount for people who want to buy and live in their own home, while discouraging people from buying multiple properties they don't need for their survival and collecting rent.
Re: Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign home buyers
#7> The province will also allow the City of Vancouver to impose an annual vacancy tax on some residential properties that are left uninhabited. That seems like a great idea. Just throwing out an idea that could be terrible, why not tax all people who don't personally live in their home? That would effectively be a discount for people who want to buy and live in their own home, while discouraging people from buying mul…
Collecting rent isn't necessarily always bad since not everyone can buy a house, regardless of the price of the property.
Re: Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign home buyers
#8I grew up in West Vancouver and there are countless neighborhoods and streets with empty million dollar houses. I remember they would go on sale and within a few days they'd be off the market, sold $30,000 - $100,000 above asking price. This has driven up prices to ridiculous heights. The average salary in Vancouver for a Software Engineer is around 75K, yet the price for a detached single family home is around $1,50…
And how does this get local people into those empty homes?
It won't. This tax is ultimately unenforceable since it would be trivial to put down a family member as living at your vacant house. All they would have to do is collect mail there and it would be virtually impossible to prove otherwise.
Re: Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign home buyers
#9I grew up in West Vancouver and there are countless neighborhoods and streets with empty million dollar houses. I remember they would go on sale and within a few days they'd be off the market, sold $30,000 - $100,000 above asking price. This has driven up prices to ridiculous heights. The average salary in Vancouver for a Software Engineer is around 75K, yet the price for a detached single family home is around $1,50…
And how does this get local people into those empty homes?
Less foreigners try to buy up houses, bringing down demand and eventually price.
Re: Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign home buyers
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
And how does this get local people into those empty homes?
It won't. This tax is ultimately unenforceable since it would be trivial to put down a family member as living at your vacant house. All they would have to do is collect mail there and it would be virtually impossible to prove otherwise.
Not true. It's fairly trivial to see if someone is living in a specific location. A simple bank statement shows where you've been spending money and tends to be good indicator of whether you're in Vancouver or not.
Canadian government already has a program like this in place for recent immigrants to ensure that they actually reside in Canada during their permanent residency period. Over the past fews years many people immigrated to Canada and left after landing to become 'convenient Canadians' five years later. Canada already knows how to do this.