Cough it up

When sales taxes are 15% or more and incomes are siphoned at 54%, when new user fees and levies are in every corner of life, what’s left?

Yup. Your house.

These are dangerous days for homeowners who don’t understand what’s coming. Already we are getting a nasty little taste of what clumsy, often racist laws passed by junior levels of government are capable of.

Mike Weatherall knows. He’s a living caution sign for every owner in Olivia Chow’s GTA.

He’s inhabited the same West Vancouver house for 15 years. Full-time. Sleeping in bis bed each night. Yet he was assessed a $17,000 extra tax bill under BC’s crazy speculation-and-vacancy law. Why would be he hit on his principal residence? Because his common-law wife also holds Japanese citizenship. So the BC government’s tax algo flagged her as a ‘satellite’ owner (in BC that’s a slur word) and the tax was applied.

Mike was shocked. But he paid, figuringthat would be cheaper than hiring a lawyer to fight. So then they sent him a new bill for $4,600.

He’s not alone. Days ago we told you of the Van couple with a one-bedder condo who were stiffed for $19,000 by the glorious, tax-happy City of Vancouver because they spent a few days shy of 184 per year in their own home.

This is what happens in a nation of people with no property rights; when bumbling politicians try to ‘fix’ housing prices and high rents; and governments tell you where you can sleep. YVR’s vacancy tax is a stunning 3% per year. That’s $2,500 per month on a million-dollar unit, after you’ve already bought and financed it, paid property taxes, plus condo (strata) fees, special assessments, insurance and utilities.

This is a war on real estate wealth. It’s not actually about increasing the pool of listings or rentals, but primarily intended to suck off cash from anyone with a second home, a place the authorities think is under-utilized or where there’s a chance to whack a non-resident, so it can be re-distributed. There’s a groundswell building in Washington, as a result, to slap a tax on all Canadians with vacay places in Florida, Arizona or elsewhere after the T2 government recently imposed a national tax on every American owning here. Even those whose families have been seasonal neighbours for decades. Arbitrary. Capricious. Unfair. And utterly ineffectual at bringing down prices or rents for the moany locals.

Now, Chow. It’s all about to get worse.

More tax, new powers, vows almost-mayor Chow

The former NDP MP (Married to the legendary late Jack Layton) is poised to become the head of Canada’s largest city – with a budget exceeding that of every province, save Ontario and Quebec – in less than three weeks. In Toronto, the mayoralty race is all about housing. Nobody cares about anything else. The average detached is $1.913 million and two-bedder rents surpass three grand a month.

Chow’s plan: triple the city’s new ‘empty-house’ tax, to 3%. Increase the double land transfer tax on homes over $3 million (the tax on a three-mill place is already $123,000… for nothing). Hike property taxes beyond the rate of inflation. Pass a law forcing owners listing a property to give the city “the pre-emptive right to acquire properties that are already listed for sale in order to secure them as affordable units.” The local government would have up to 60 days to match any offer – raising questions about quasi-expropriation. This would be funded annually with $100 million – coming out of property taxes.

Says she: “Renters are feeling precarious. They are worried about surprise rent increases and renovictions. They know the rental market is skyrocketing and they are afraid that if they have to move, they won’t be able to find a home they can afford. Renters need a mayor who has their back.”

To that end, the city would establish a “Toronto Renters Action Committee”, mandated to fight landlords needing to displace tenants for renovations. So now rental real estate investors will have yet another foe in addition to the landlord/tenant bureaucracy (which has made non-paying tenants unevictable), funded by their own property taxes.

Well, half the people in Toronto rent. Chow knows where to aim her message. She joins a growing chorus of political voices crying for homeowner blood. So now we have empty-house taxes, transfer taxes, flip taxes, property taxes, spec taxes, non-local taxes and assignment taxes.

This is not the end. It is the beginning.

About the picture: “Their parents are going through a divorce and could not keep them,” write Bruce and Pauline. ” So, we adopted these babies. These are Atlas and Bibou after at DIY ‘spa day’
(bath and hair grooming) at home. We have been following your post and advice for a few years. Thank you for all your hard work.”

To be in touch or submit a picture of your beast(s): [email protected].

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2023/06/09/cough-it-up/