The provincial government had already enraged a swath of homeowners with its new speculation tax. Now Finance Minister Carole James has announced that all homeowners in major urban centres will have to apply for exemptions every year or they will be taxed.
These centres include Greater Victoria, Metro Vancouver, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Abbotsford, Mission and Chilliwack.
The tax is designed to ensure homes are being used rather than sitting empty in the largest urban centres, which are plagued by unaffordable housing and low vacancy rates. It was aimed at out-of-province speculators, but an estimated two-thirds of those who will pay are British Columbians.
For Canadian citizens who own a house in B.C. but leave it vacant for more than six months a year, the levy is 0.5 per cent of the home’s assessed value, meaning $5,000 on a house worth $1 million. Payment is due by July 2 of this year. For foreign owners, the same tax rate applies for 2018, but rises to two per cent in 2019.
Several circumstances will get you an exemption, but the main ones are that the home is your principal residence or it is rented at least six months of the year.
But every year, you are going to have to jump through this bureaucratic hoop or pay a tax that probably doesn’t apply to you. This defies one of the basic requirements of any fair tax — that it should affect only those who are meant to be targeted.
Here, the estimated 99 per cent of British Columbians to whom the tax does not apply will still be forced to prove they are innocent bystanders. The administrative costs don’t bear thinking about.
This is a fiasco that homeowners will remember when they step into the voting booth.
