Carney joins chorus against B.C. housing tax

March 28, 2018

Pat Carney

Former Conservative Senator Pat Carney has joined the chorus of protest against B.C.’s punitive new “speculation tax” which taxes homes that are left vacant.
The annual tax is 5 per cent of the assessed value of a home this year and 20 per cent in following years.
Carney has written B.C. Premier John Horgan about the damage she said the tax would level on people who live in rural B.C. and also have properties in the city.
“Your proposed tax misses the target of limiting real estate speculation by foreign investors in specific regions of the province and lands a bull’s eye on Canadians, including British Columbians, who support our rural economies,” she writes in her letter.
 “The proposed tax on secondary residences would force me to make a difficult choice; give up my Saturna home, where my parents are buried, or sell my Vancouver condo, since strata rules do not permit rentals and I cannot afford the punitive tax proposed,” she writes in her letter.
The B.C. government has met with stiff resistance on the new tax and has said it will make changes before the tax rolls out this fall.
Carney, however, said the tax can’t be “tweaked” and is calling for its removal.
Mayors and property owners in West Kelowna and Nanaimo, both of which have a large number of seasonal residences, have also called for the tax to be changed or scrapped.