[Timpo]

Originally Posted by 4444

Canadian government is doing it all wrong, and their worries are coming through.

The US has a much better system for foreign investment in real estate, call FIRPTA (Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act, if memory serves me well).

If you do not file taxes in US, they just withhold. You sell your property, 10% of proceeds must be withheld by the buyer and remitted to the government (title agency will do this) - you must prove you are a US filer to avoid this - the burden is on the buyer (not the seller, buyer is the withholding agent) to ensure everything is correct... ppl don't fuck this up.

I was exposed to this, and set up a structure to avoid FIRPTA (create a tax paying resident entity), but then again, I have nothing to hide and enjoy paying my taxes in the US as they're generally low.

it's a great system, canada should do something very similar. they have a tax on the way in, but you can also tax on the way out if the owner isn't a tax paying resident.

you can then go further and increase property taxes on empty properties (something I don't mind as they are removed from being a productive asset, and are therefore inefficient) or you could even just jack up property taxes for all and offer a rebate based on a number of factors, such as taxable income on your return, or age (would heavily tax students owning $31M properties, but would avoid taxing retirees, if you meet rebate criteria, you don't pay taxes up front just net them so no cash flow difference).

there are so many tools at the disposal of the government / CRA to automatically collect taxes / impose taxes whilst ensuring tax paying residents don't get burdened... but smart thinking isn't the strong point of politicians, nor is protecting the interest of tax paying voters in BC.

yeah Canada seems behind compare to other countries in terms of tax and these kinda stuff.

also they're not very good at infrastructures in general.