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…
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…
The BC government has proposed to introduce a new residential realty tax, taking effect this year. While BC has provided a general overview of the new tax by way of information sheets and public announcements, the government has yet to…
The Province of Quebec announced today that it intends to expand its requirements for non-resident vendors to collect and remit Quebec Sales Tax (“QST”) on sales to Quebec consumers, effective as early as January 1, 2019. In this context “non-resident”…
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…
The BC government recently congratulated itself on the apparent effects of its controversial decision over the summer to impose an additional 15% property transfer tax on purchases of real estate in Metro Vancouver by foreign buyers. Since then, the…