Introduction
In 2017, the City of Vancouver introduced its annual residential vacancy tax (or “empty homes tax”). At that time, the tax rate was 1% of the assessed value of a subject property. The governing statute and administration program were…
Vacant housing taxes came into effect in Toronto and Ottawa for 2022, meaning that homeowners will have to file their first occupancy status declaration by February 2023 (for Toronto) and March 2023 (for Ottawa). Toronto’s portal is now open for…
Unlike most tax audits across the country, the pandemic has failed to disrupt audits under the City of Vancouver’s empty homes tax (“EHT”). Paradoxically, those audits appear to be increasing in recent months. More so than other audit types, EHT audits…
Several weeks ago the Vancouver city council passed a motion instructing its staff to develop a plan that would “improve the fairness and effectiveness of the Empty Homes Tax [or EHT]…”. This would require a review of “the fairness and…
Taxes on residential realty in and around Greater Vancouver have been steadily proliferating over the past few years: first the provincial Foreign Buyer Tax (2016), then the municipal Vacancy Tax (2017) and, most recently, the provincial Speculation Tax (2018). All…
Last week the BC government tabled Bill 45, which seeks to implement the province’s new Speculation and Vacancy Tax. A careful review of the Bill suggests that it is overreaching and lacking in taxpayer fairness. Critical aspects of the…
For the past few months, the City of Vancouver has been conducting audits to verify the 2017 vacancy tax declarations filed by owners under the City’s Vacancy Tax By-Law No. 11674. Observers of the tax, which is unique in Canada, have…
The Tax Court of Canada last week released a landmark decision on the GST/HST status of certain commonplace transaction processing services, namely VISA’s payment platform offering to financial institutions.
In Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v Her Majesty the Queen,…
A few months ago, BC announced a new “speculation tax” that will apply to certain residential properties in the province. The tax is intended to capture foreign and domestic speculators, “satellite families” who live in BC but pay little BC…
BC’s Property Transfer Tax Act (“PTTA”) currently taxes only registered transfers of realty. In other words, it essentially taxes transfers of legal ownership, but not transfers of beneficial ownership. Numerous BC governments have for years considered expanding the scope of…