Foreign Real Estate Buyers in Vancouver Facing New Tax

vancouver

 

It’s no secret that many wealthy individuals own multiple homes, including vacation homes in foreign countries. In an effort to capitalize on this popular trend amongst the wealthy, many countries and/or cities have created new taxes aimed specifically at wealthy real estate buyers from foreign countries. Among the latest locations to enact a new tax on wealth property buyers is Vancouver, BC in Canada.

According to recent reports, the housing market has seen a huge shopping spree lately in the area as many wealthy foreign buyers, especially from China, have been snatching up homes at a fast pace. In fact, foreign buyers spent more than a billion dollars on homes and property in British Columbia between June 10 and July 14 of this year alone. With the increasing demand for property in BC, housing prices have soared almost 30 percent in the last year, which has left many local buyers unable to compete for these homes.

Therefore, in an effort to keep things fair, the British Columbian government has issued a new 15 percent tax, which will apply, to all “foreign nationals or foreign-controlled corporations” purchasing property in the metropolitan Vancouver area. BC is not the first place to issue such a tax. Australia and Singapore both recently raised the tax on foreign real estate buyers as well. The BC government said that anyone who attempts to avoid the new tax could face fines in the six figures and up to two years behind bars.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/26/wealthy-overseas-buyers-to-face-new-real-estate-tax-in-vancouver.html

Posted in
Trevor Cornwell

Optimizing Your App | Trevor Cornwell

About Trevor Cornwell Trevor Cornwell, Founder and CEO, appbackr inc., a Palo Alto-based Market Exchange for Apps. Appbackr helps publishers and platforms identify the rights apps to optimize revenue. Appbackr is a winner of the PayPal X Developer Challenge, an OnMobile 100 Company and an AlwaysOn 250 Company. Cornwell’s career has been spent developing and…

Paul Thomas

Intel Chief Economist | Paul Thomas

About Paul Thomas Paul Thomas is chief economist and manager of market sizing and forecasting at Intel Corporation in Santa Clara, Calif. He joined Intel in December, 2004, after working at Continental Airlines in Houston, Texas, from 1997 to 2004 and as chief economist from 2001 to 2004. Paul was senior economist at Douglas Aircraft…

Jake Lipman

Immigration Law | Jake Lipman

About Jake Lipman Jake Lipman has practiced immigration law for over ten years. His practice focuses on employment-based immigration, counseling employers in complex immigration practice and policy concerns. Over the years, he has supported multinational and domestic organizations of all sizes and from every major industry. Jakob has lectured on immigration-related subjects in a variety…

Manoj Fernando

Disruptive Business Education | Manoj Fernando

About Manoj Fernando Through his global work experience, including six Silicon Valley startups, Manoj has learned much about business and entrepreneurship — often the hard way. When he had the opportunity to teach Executive MBA students he realized he was lacking in real-life business education. In particular, the relevant basic building blocks of Silicon Valley’s…