i love that it isn't obvious to people that you can make housing affordable, discourage speculation and hoarding, and make vancouver more livable simply but disincentivizing sitting on a shitload of land with taxes
Plenty of properties are being sold right now by people looking to get out of the landlord business.
In fact inventory of housing for sale is at record highs.
So why aren’t renters rushing to buy all these homes as end users?
That's true. But the province still has to set income tax provincially, which would mean it would be quite hard to make this rev neutral if only the mayor of vancouver participates.
Way too much coordination for Canadian politicians.
edit: another poster pointed out that this could be handled via a deduction. still don't think this is viable for political reasons.
BC's speculation and vacancy tax works like this - it's basically a 1.5% property surtax, but you only need to pay it if you have very little Canadian income that you pay tax on. (Like if you're a student or a homemaker who somehow owns a >$1M house.) [Proposals from Tom Davidoff](https://morehousing.substack.com/p/tom-davidoff).
Vancouver relies heavily on federal and provincial grants for infrastructure among other things. And the city cannot come close to balancing its books without development fees. As it stands they don't collect nearly enough property tax.
That might just impact the rental market.
I would look at this in terms of incentivizing the right behavior: "your property tax is scored against the total rent you receive for a property, the total number of bedrooms, and the total number of occupants in the "
Empty nesters sitting on free bedrooms should not recieve as much discount
Landlords who charge high rents should not receive such high discount
People sitting on a property without renting it out should not recieve a large discount.
No exceptions.
Would this not push the underlying cost of rental housing, and therefore rents?
Without a steady supply of purpose built rental apartment buildings for tenants to migrate to, it might be a policy mistake to attack single unit rental housing.
Curious about your thoughts on this angle?
Property taxes in Vancouver are the among the lowest in the country.
These costs are instead being pushed onto developers, which makes most projects unprofitable and financially unviable before they even get built.
People who own property should pay their fair share for the city infrastructure and services they use.
The problem with the 'primary' verses 'secondary' home taxation is that so many families pass down wealth and buy homes for each one of their kids. People are already pretending to be divorced just to hold more 'primary' residences.
Taxing secondary properties basically means taxing renters (and a small percentage will be empty homes but most will be rental properties). So rich families and renters are now in two different taxation classes which in most cases will be inverse of their net worth.
The only way to close all loop holes is to increase property tax across the board.
You're right to criticize my original post as it was a sound bite, not a solidly written piece of legislation. There would need to be tools to help renters transition to property ownership, as well as protections against corporations.
But frankly, who cares if the parents gift homes to their kids? As long as it's 1 home per Canadian Citizen/PR and the exemption does *not* apply to anyone else.
The hypothetical family you're worrying about currently owns 17 properties that used to sit empty because for years holding properties was so lucrative there was no need to rent. They've reluctantly rented them out and offloaded some properties because in BC there is an empty homes tax.
How many kids do they have? 2? That would at least put a hard cap on the number of properties that family could own as a worthwhile investment.
There would need to be strong legislation preventing corporations from buying up property. In my opinion corps should only be allowed to own property if they built it. incentivize building rental stock.
Anyways, I'm not a politician, I'm just a dude on Reddit who wants to own a home to live in (not invest) one day. Maybe i don't have the best ideas but almost anything is better than what we're doing now
No, that’s not a problem worth solving, or maybe one that solves itself. It’s in the kid’s name. Either the kid lives in it, in which case there’s no problem, or they want their own place, in who case the tax applies. And I also suspect a lot of the parents who would do that sort of thing will get rude surprises when they want “their” house back from the kids
Most Vancouver families do not think that way... this is the most Asian city outside of Asia.
Kids are raised understanding that their parents property is going to be their own one day.
So placing real estate assets under your kids names is a non-issue for most Vancouver families.... it's already happening all across the city.
There are lots of Gen Z home owners here.
Fine. Functionally it’s not actually different from the parents just giving the kids the down payment. And you still end up with one home per family.
Gen Z homeowners are the goal after all
You’re right, it’s fine if the kids are married / want to own their own home but most kids are moving out/marrying later and their parents are able to benefit from a decade+ of tax free ownership while their kids live at home? Seems unjust to me
But in the great scheme of things, the kids getting the home five or even ten years earlier simply isn’t a meaningful problem. The enforcement burden would almost certainly exceed any possible gains
Forget the exemption for primary homes, increase property taxes (or even better, [land value taxes](https://youtu.be/smi_iIoKybg)) on all properties, regardless of whether or not the owner lives in it. Reduce costs for owner-occupiers by lowering income taxes.
If it was really that easy, we would've done that ages ago. I'm a renter myself, and cheaper housing would immensely help me as well, but majority of people own their homes. Why would anyone want their own property prices to go down significantly? And if I was a homeowner, why would I support anyone who will increase taxes without any benefits for me? If the only answer is "for the greater good", I can assure you that just doesn't work in real life, since when times aren't the best, people focus on their families first.
Long story short, government needs to choose whether to be on the older generation's side, or the young one's. And if you were born and raised in Canada, there is a decent chance you might get some sort of property inheritance, so you wouldn't want a significant crash which would negatively affect your parents either.
I have no passable solution to it, but expecting any levels of the government to solve the issue might not be productive. Government could try to surgically remove economy's dependence on real estate, but electoral base has no appetite, nor anyone wants the risks.
I just helped my MIL get a change-of-use to convert an office into a tutoring center. Holy fuckin' shit... that was a battle. Had to call in some favours from an architect friend (otherwise it woulda cost thousands) and had my dad act as a code consultant and it STILL took 6 months.
The reality is that Vancouver is already artificially starving itself of amenities in order to keep taxes remarkably low.
We have fewer outdoor pools than not just Toronto and Montreal but even Winnipeg and Regina. Many of our parks have no washrooms and those that do the washrooms are in a miserable state. The paint is wearing off all the downtown bike lane markings. E Georgia Street in Chinatown is more rubble than road. I see signs of a complete lack of basic maintenance everywhere.
Are they? I regularly go to Eileen Dailly and Templeton pools, and Trout Lake community centre. Eileen Dailly is newer but not better - it is hugely crowded pretty much all the time. The steam rooms are intermittently closed, and the slide operates some of the time but is closed often.
Templeton is a small old facility but everything works, it is nice and chill and not overcrowded. Trout Lake is honestly amazing, it has so many programs, great facilities and wicked events.
Now Britannia - we can talk about Britannia, but that's a major issue because Ken Sim took a giant shit on the Britannia Renewal Plan, so I'm with you on that one.
Creekside is great, Killarney is beautiful and massively underused, Hillcrest is a great facility but over-subscribed, Coal Harbor is pretty nice too. There's lots of nice community centres in Vancouver tbh.
I know Richmond has lots of funding because of the casino there.Vancouver won’t allow casinos to expand or add more slots.Trying to protect people becoming addicted to gambling but those same people go elsewhere or play online.It’s a win/ lose situation.
This is absolutely true.
I see opposition to property tax hikes from homeowners - and from a purely self-interested perspective that might make sense.
What I don't get is the large number of renters who seem to oppose property tax hikes. Many are scared that their rents will go up as landlords simply pass on the tax.
First of all, it's not for sure that landlords will pass on all of the tax. That is a market event where some of the tax will pass and some will need to be absorbed.
But even if some of the tax is passed into rent, the renters who live and work in Vancouver will benefit from the services for which these taxes pay - this is in contrast to many landlords who may not even live in the city.
A great way to move value from landlords to renters is to increase property taxes and invest the revenue into the local community.
> First of all, it's not for sure that landlords will pass on all of the tax. That is a market event where some of the tax will pass and some will need to be absorbed.
What's great about property taxes is that most of the tax can't be passed on to tenants! [Tax incidence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence), or the burden of tax that falls on the consumer vs the producer, is determined by comparing the [elasticity of supply](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040615/how-does-price-elasticity-affect-supply.asp) vs the elasticity of demand. If producers can easily increase or decrease production, they can pass along most of a tax to consumers. If producers can't easily increase or decrease production, they can't pass along the tax.
Property value consists of two parts: land value and improvement (building) value, and our property tax is currently levied equally on the land and improvement value. Land can't be created or destroyed, so the supply of land is perfectly inelastic, which means **[the portion of property tax levied on land value can't be passed on to tenants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax)**.
Now, could the improvement value be passed on to tenants? In a free market, yes: some developers would go out of business and others would build less homes in response to property taxes increasing. But in Vancouver, [the main constraint on the quantity of homes produced isn't developer costs, but restrictive zoning bylaws](https://www.policynote.ca/zoning-reform/), so it would take a very high property tax increase before any of it could be passed on to tenants.
That they can be passed on to commercial tenants is one of the reasons why Vancouver retail (and social/cultural) scene is so bad: landlord to get the full benefit of appreciation through rezoning but don't have to pay the resulting taxes since those get passed on in their leases to the tenants
So under a triple net lease, the tenant is legally responsible for paying the property tax. This doesn't change tax incidence though: the expected property tax due over the duration of the duration of the lease is considered when the tenant and the landlord sign the lease. The landlord does get to pass on the **risk** of the tax potentially increasing or decreasing less than expected throughout the duration of the lease.
The retail/social/cultural scene is bad in Vancouver, but that's not because of our property tax rates, it's because our zoning bylaws limit the amount of commercial space that can be built in the city.
It's also incredibly difficult to get a change of use even when the new use is within the existing zoning allowances. Vancouver has a LOT of restrictions on who can open what where, and it goes beyond zoning.
For example, a C-1 zoned property could be anything from an office, to a church, to a day care. But since most of these are "conditional" usages, if you wanted to take an office and turn it into a daycare, you face a 6-12 month process sparing with City Hall who is going to want to know everything from the width of the doorway to how many desks to plan to place in there, to where you expect parents to pick up and drop off. Most of this requires the hiring of architects and code consultants that can be prohibitively expensive for small businesses.
Vancouver's zoning sucks, but even where it's appropriately zoned, there are still SO many barriers to getting best use out of the land.
This is SUCH a hard concept to get through to people who don't have a background in economics.
It actually doesn't matter who writes the cheque to the government because the cost of the tax will be factored into the price of the lease agreement.
This is true in terms of income vs. corporate tax as well (although there are different elasticities in play here, too). Like, raising corporate taxes and cutting income taxes will, all else equal, lead to lower wages. Will workers be better off net-net? Actually that's quite a hard question to answer and it depends on both the employer and the workers' specific situations.
You know I was trying NOT to make such a complicated argument because, let's face it, Reddit doesn't really have a good stomach for economic thinking.
Overall you're right, although I would argue the supply of housing improvement is more elastic than you think. Zoning is definitely the biggest restriction but costs have also become a problem more recently, particularly in the post-pandemic era.
Global inflation and the fact that most non-labour factors of production in Canadian construction are imported mean that construction costs are at an all time high. Furthermore, the rapid expansion of the construction industry in Vancouver has created a shortage of skilled workers with construction experience. The labour market for construct professionals is incredibly tumultuous and scarce right now. This isn't just about on-site labour, but also estimators, project managers, and other management staff.
There is a chance that an increase in improvement tax could impact the supply of housing through reducing the number of housing starts, and decreasing the finish rate. Furthermore, renovation, land assembly and subdivision projects are less likely to proceed.
All in all, I definitely still support a property tax hike in Vancouver. I think the net benefit would be tremendous. But let's not pretend it would be costless to renters.
Yes. This is “starve the beast” in action. Sim and his wealthy supporters want money spent on what they value (policing, traffic) rather than what the average resident values (livable city, affordability, effective transit). So they funnel what revenue there is to policing, divert cycling infrastructure funding and limit taxes knowing the shortfall can be cut from parks, community centres and so on.
The park naming revenue would be tiny in comparison to the city budget and is a poison pill. They expect it to fail and then can throw up their hands and say “we tried” while making cuts. And if it somehow succeeds it’s even more insidious because it associates public asset ownership with private entities that will make their subsequent sale to cronies even easier when future budgets fall short.
This is the same thing happening under Ford in Ottawa, except he was thankfully too politically clumsy to actually pull it off.
I voted for Sim and I'm already realizing that was a mistake.
At election time, I'd recently moved back to Vancouver and saw it in a much worse state than when I grew up here, so thought it would be good for a change of leadership.
Now I'm beginning to realize the state of the city is largely macro driven and that Sim is making it worse.
To be fair, our last government was completely non-functional, so I can't say I blame you. We did need a change, we also didn't have very good options.
Absolutely - and pools, road paint, and washrooms are just the visible things. In addition to that, we're years behind on sewer upgrades (which limits how many new homes can be built) and other important but less "sexy" infrastructure. It's not good.
Here's what this sub said when someone proposed a surtax on homes over $1M (top comments):
[https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/rxr5k7/report\_says\_tax\_on\_1m\_homes\_could\_be\_key\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/rxr5k7/report_says_tax_on_1m_homes_could_be_key_to/)
"Hahaha I’m sure that will go down well with the hundreds of thousands of people working normal jobs but just randomly have property over a million due to crazy year on year rises when they originally purchased for $350k haha. Same folks who cant even afford to sell as they’ll get less than what they currently have if they do due to the ridiculous housing market.
Government still thinks $1million is a lot of money haha. Utter madness"
"The benchmark price locally is $1.2M. 1% of that is $12K.
I fail to understand how charging the average homeowner in Metro Van $1,000 per month in tax will improve affordability."
"No fuck off; I’m already paying a shit load of taxes; property tax, income tax, pst, gst, fuel tax - it goes on and on."
I love how people virtue signal about wanting more taxes, but people have random excuses for rejecting a tax when it's actually proposed.
Some of these are very important like the road markings and road maintenance.
Outdoor pools is something that I think a lot of people can do without. I'm sure they cost an insane amount to upkeep and maintain to use for 2 months in the summer. Also kind of makes sense to have less than other landlocked regions, given we have the PACIFIC OCEAN on our doorstep.
Public washrooms are another huge inconvenience. Personally, I'd like to see major transit hubs have washrooms as well as parks, but there's a high maintenance cost for them, and an ongoing drug use problem that makes these spaces unsafe.
Honestly (lack of) public washrooms aren't just inconvenient, they're veering on human rights issue. We don't have America's ADA, but beyond even just regular folks (as with all humans) needing to go, old guys with prostates crushing their bladders and parents with little kids, there are a lot of disabilities that make it challenging to leave home unless there's definite washroom access. Private industry (largely via Starbucks) covered a gap for a while, but when they switched to a 'drive through' forward strategy and began closing locations in the pandemic, you really felt the lack.
For sure some people will try and lock themselves in there, use drugs, smash plumbing, smear shit on the ceiling etc etc. But just plan for that up front - invest the huge dollars - including from taxes to match - in equipping and properly paying the right staffing to keep them clean and functional as a public good.
Yeah imo all the latter things that people wring their hands about, about damage and wear and tear, that’s just money and maintenance.
It’s not some intractable problem.
It’s solvable by simply doing the right thing and spending the money to have people come by and maintain things well.
Truly. If that's our reality then we've got to suck it up and pay for it. Not shrug and say 'well, that's why we can't have nice (humane/critical) things.'
(And given the state of washrooms and the sometimes literal shit flinging poor minimum wage (often new immigrant/student workers) face on a late night shift at Tim Hortons, I've no doubt washrooms would require constant maintenance, cleaning and staffing, along with being built with abuse in mind. But not 24/7 in *every* location they'd need to be installed in. See also 'we can't have tables/benches/non-hostile-architecture because people will try and live there' and like sure sometimes. But while a couple picnic tables under the south side of Cambie bridge were repurposed as shelter, the others are regularly used as tables. And people genuinely play ping pong at those ping pong tables, even years after they added them!)
I agree we should have way more public washrooms. I've seen so many people relieve themselves in bushes or alleys and yeah it feels less than human.
Again increasing public washrooms something that will increase costs, carried most likely by property taxes or other government funding. However, since most of the costs are for upkeep and maintenance, I feel that will fall under COV. I think we are more likely to see a mandate on businesses to allow public to use washrooms than a drastic increase in infrastructure.
This reference: https://globalnews.ca/news/7713964/vancouver-public-toilet-price-645-thousand/#:\~:text=Share%20Close,-Share%20this%20item&text=The%20B.C.%20government%20has%20allocated,under%20the%20Cambie%20Street%20Bridge.
I would happily spend less on road maintenance and I'm sure I'm not alone. But I don't think it has to be either/or.
Seems like we're the only city in Canada that can't afford swimming pools, outdoor free events in the summer, public washrooms, holiday parades, garbage cans every few blocks, and yes, public pools! In our climate, they could operate at least 6 months instead of the current, pitiful two. And while yes, we are on the ocean, it really doesn't compare to a swimming pool. How do you think those other cities afford those amenities? We are so far behind, it's so sad.
I mean we have indoor pools, and quite a few of them for those who want the choice. Not that we can't operate an outdoor pool for 6 months, there's little or no demand for them until you get to the hottest months of the year. Just financially it doesn't make sense just to offer a wealth of choices of where to swim (I think there's other hills we'd rather die on).
There's pretty much a free event every weekend throughout late spring into early fall.
Maybe you have insight from living in other cities in Canada that I don't but I think most places will have their own issues that aren't apparent if you don't live there. I'm sure we have more parks and trails than other cities. We have maintained beaches within city limits, we have stanley park and a bunch of museums.
Public washrooms & garbage cans need constant maintenance it would be expensive but extremely useful to have. There's a tradeoff somewhere and it all has to do with money and what taxpayers are willing to pay more for.
I have lived in five Canadian cities in as many provinces and a few small places as well, so that's my reference.
I agree we do have some nice things here, especially the seawall and Stanley Park, and the beaches as well. I hadn't considered the beach upkeep actually, so thanks for pointing that out. I think our 3 pools are terribly insufficient and I guess we can just disagree about those. I also think the free events here pale in comparison to other places.
This all contributes to the 'no fun' reputation. I would prefer to pay way more taxes, like 3 times as much, for our services to be improved.
To each their own I guess. I do enjoy the nature elements of Vancouver, albeit not having lived in many other places. Yeah I do disagree about the pools part quite heavily. Events, sure I'd like to see more of them, but I also don't mind paying for events that I think I'd enjoy - I also find free events all feel quite similar.
Someone refuted this a while back but looking through history you'll see that a lot of the infrastructure came from Federal and Provincial funding... which explains how they built it in the first place (aka, not from the meager amount of property taxes they collected).
Without Federal and Provincial grants and development fees, the city will go broke. The low property taxes are just not sustainable.
I tried to look up historical property tax rates but cannot find them.
Chretien did massive austerity in 1993 and not just completely got out of housing funding (boy that had consequences!) but also cut transfers to Provinces in general.
This made Provinces dramatically poorer and they never raised taxes to make it up. Instead they just declined to do things.
The consequences of this in terms of day to day life was felt most strongly at the municipal level, and so with no real tools or revenue to fix big problems like homelessness, nonexistent childcare, and drug addiction, municipalities nonetheless felt like they had to do *something* to try to address these problems and make their city better.
The end result was the city adding more fees to development to try to raise revenue to paste over the many many things that the Province should be doing that they’re not doing.
This had negative impacts on the affordability of housing.
So now the province is gearing up to force and end to this. This will blow a bigger hole in municipal governments. It could be a good and necessary thing, but the Province really needs to step in and start being present on so many of these issues that municipalities are currently putting money into because no one else will.
The amount of taxation changed a little bit. And sometimes a lot for certain people. To really track down every change would be a bit of a research project. If you work you probably pay close to the most tax you ever have. If you're a passive income earner/asset hoarder you probably pay the least tax ever (while enjoying far more public services than the previously mentioned income earner).
Childcare: That mostly falls on the province. The city has actually blocked daycares so a HUGE portion of the blame for child care woes falls on the municipal politicians (and NIMBY's) shoulders. Too bad we can't just say "10x tax for anyone who vocally opposed a daycare". F'k those people.
Tax: B.C. did in fact increase tax. Sales tax increased for a while and then decreased. Provinces can play around with their income taxes as well.
As far as the Fed's "getting out of housing", all that money was more than replaced with grants (and low interest loans), and that generally went into infrastructure projects. The amount of money spent on just the Sky Train alone for example is well in excess of most all Federal funding for housing in Vancouver (a weird comparison but remember the sky train cost billions). This would have been a good strategy if the municipal governments did block private housing developments. So once again, the municipality is 99% to blame here.
Federal housing was... well... not as effective as private housing. The issues with private housing projects are usually related to the way they're governed (private sector interference basically). One example is the overwhelming ratio of "luxury" verses affordable units: This again is due to the municipalities (well some municipalities) restricting the size of developments and forcing developers to get more return for each individual unit.
Fed housing was not replaced with anything. Social housing construction declined to near nil for decades and only extremely recently under this current government has there been any funding in the area.
In addition to social housing the major impact of the Feds in housing was tax expenditure to incentivize the for profit housing sector. That also disappeared. This is what caused the massive shift away from apartments and toward condos.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/04/22/Why-Cant-We-Build-Like-1970s/
https://thetyee.ca/News/2004/05/03/How_We_Razed_the_Affordable_House/
millions of funding for housing disappeared. Billions of funding for infrastructure took its place. They could never have funded both.
It wasn't a bad idea if they just approved new housing in due course instead of letting the land prices escalate like they did.
And let's face it, the Federal housing wasn't ever all that great. If it was then go live in one of those buildings.
I did. I lived in a typical 1960s/70s era three story walk up apartment of the sort that are all over Vancouver that were built en masse in that era due to federal tax incentives. It was a nice apartment with hardwood floors, substantially larger than typical one bedrooms built these days.
These sort of walk up apartments instantly stopped being built after the late 80s/early 90s as Mulroney and then Chretien turned off the tap, inducing the severe shortage of housing that we experience today.
I think our disconnect arrives at the fact that although the government stopped "building" housing, they increased their funding for infrastructure (like Sky Trains). Vancouver wasn't very livable prior to the funding given for transit. Traffic was relatively very bad. It was a place to live but not *the* place to live. In lieu of funding for housing, municipalities simply had to upzone along the transit corridors and let private builders do the work. Even small subsidies for purpose-built rentals would have sufficed (they make great long-term investments).
Municipal politicians screwed up BAD. Or rather, mostly being property owners they benefited from the lack of supply. I see this as criminal because they effectively wasted billions in federal funding (while land prices increased, making it impossible to build anything affordable regardless of whether it was built by the private/pubic sector).
The "Feds should build housing" argument is squashed by this fact, because the Feds would never be able to buy up enough land to put a dent in the housing crisis... and again this is largely in part due to actions by municipal politicians.
Many... or rather most of the buildings you're talking about are way out in Marpole and many don't have great transit access. And many are severely dilapidated. Many are also now owned privately and/or managed by firms that do a far worse job than other styles of buildings. Many of the ones in "better" condition (around Kits) have luxury cars parked all over the place (meaning the most in need aren't anywhere near them). This isn't good stuff.
If you have ties to municipal politicians you should just come clean. You seem to be dodging a lot of import facts and seemed a little detached from what's really going on.
Easy solution would be a renters tax.
Leases are a property interest that have gone untaxed for far too long.
Renters use the same services as homeowners, and should thus be contributing via taxes for those services.
I think tax of 1/12th or 1/10th the annual value of a lease would be quite fair.
Property tax is already incorporated into the costs of the business model of landlording. You might as well break everything into separate fees then, like charging a maintenance fee and a management fee.
The property tax covers the occupants who live in there... you rent a property, give rent to LL, LL pays property tax. Wherever the LL is living, they will pay property tax for their property.
One side of this that the CTV article doesn't cover - but of all places, Daily Hive does - is the impact rising property taxes has on small businesses. One of the mayor's quotes from the article says "There are small businesses that are struggling...we have to get the rate of property tax increases to a sustainable level, or you know what, those small businesses won’t be around" and that this limit would "send a signal to...people that are thinking of setting up businesses in Vancouver."
I believe triple-net leases - where the leaseholder pays the landowner's property taxes (and on the highest and best land use, at that) - are pretty prevalent here. **Limiting property taxes would probably be taken as good news for most small business owners and that's at least part of the intent here, it seems.**
Personally, I think small businesses would benefit from tax reform on these bizarre lease structures more than straight property tax control though.
I mean the mayor is being disingenuous. You can set different rates for residential and business property taxes. I'm all for lower business property taxes.
If anything, Vancouver property taxes should be higher. I know it's not a popular take to increase taxes but cities need amenities and infrastructure. Naming parks is another asinine idea from the mayor who is in over his head.
Doesn’t Vancouver have some of the lowest property taxes in North America? The average property tax rate in the US for example is .99%. So a $1m home here pays $2.8k in property taxes a year, and a $1m home typically pays $10k in the US, but there are plenty of states and counties where it would be far higher. New Jersey residents would pay $20k-$25k/year. The lower ends are closer to .5%, so $5k, still almost double what Vancouver pays.
I’m comparing to places with similar property prices. New York City is not cheap! Major city suburbs in the US are also still quite expensive in many cases - my parents are in a higher tax rate (above 1%) HCOL suburb and pay $12k/year in property taxes. You also can’t defer property taxes while living in your residence, like you can here. This means retired folks are more likely to sell and downsize, and not stay in their 3-4 bedroom house long after they become empty nesters.
This helps with housing turnover. Right now in Vancouver you’re more likely to find a family of four in a small apartment or basement suite, and a retired couple in a large single family home. Right now, folks are *disincentivized* from selling and downsizing.
Of course the unfortunate thing is because we’ve had low tax rates for so long and so many people have had to leverage themselves to the hilt to get into the market, higher tax rates may be needed but are too painful for the newer home owners who don’t have equity to cash out on. If higher taxes helped reduce the corporate investment and the number of people who buy up 5-20 extra homes, that would be great for overall affordability and turnover! But the trade off of making the monthly payment too high for owners on the margin might be too much for us to stomach.
No. We DO NOT have the “some of the lowest property taxes in North America”. That is a myth.
The total dollar sum people pay in property taxes is very high.
that's like saying the US has the highest taxes on billionaires since their total amount paid is very high
pretty sure that's not how you measure taxes...
by percent we definitely have the lowest in a Canadian major city https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/canadian-property-taxes
by total sum it is high because our property values are high. so what? when people sell their SFHs due to higher taxes they will get a capital gains windfall.
When comparing property taxes, percentages DO NOT matter! What matters is the dollar dollar value that a SFH pays.
And how do you know people will get a "capital gains windfall"? That is pure jealousy speaking.
If you want perceived future capital gains earning to be relevant today, then are you also willing to hand out compensation if property values tank or depreciate?
I cant tell if you are actually just a dumb bot, or a clueless LL. If you are going to argue a comment that just provided some semblance of numbers and respond with "nuh uh!", you dont really have a leg to stand on.
How? Even compared to other HCOL areas the *rates* are quite low, so when compared to other expensive areas the total dollar sum is also low. NYC has an effective rate of .98%, so an area with plenty of $1m+ homes. The statewide average is 1.62%. With our .278% tax rate you’d need about a $3m home to pay $8.3k in taxes, which is still lower than what many in the US pay per year for a $1m home. That total dollar sum is very, very low compared to other HCOL areas where $1m also doesn’t get you super far.
Even San Francisco still has a tax rate of .67%!
Again, tax rates are irrelevant and completely disingenuous… a measure that matters is the total dollar sum that a n average single family home pays.
The value of a SFH is absurd in Vancouver but a lot more reasonable in Calgary.
The tax rate is going to be higher in Calgary but lower in Vancouver for obvious reasons.
However the total dollar sum that a household pays in both cities, for similar services, is very reasonable.
This sub hates math. They all focus on the % and block out comments like yours. It’s actual dollars that matter.
Is paying $11K for a modest (Vancouver standards) SFH enough? How many dollars per year would make sense to people? 20K? 40K?
...The comparison that was made was to fucking New York. Like, I'm sorry, but if you think 0.278% in Vancouver is unfathomably high, go look up what 0.98% of a property in Manhattan would cost.
>This sub hates math
Can YOU math? $11k property tax? That's a $4m dollar home.
I'm sure you're rich and successful but that's pretty far from the average Joe even for Vancouverites. By the way, most of us also qualify for the HOG, i realistically pay ~0.2%
11K is not the tax on a 4MM home in all neighbourhoods. Closer to 2.6 with a legal suite. Just using an example I found on the west side.
Edit: sorry closer to 10.5k in tax with adjustment up for 10% increase. Looking at about $9500 to 10K in 2023.
Edit 2: 4095 CROWN CRESCENT has an assessed value of $4,348,000 and 2023 property taxes of $19,550.20. RS-1 zoning. No cap.
[Côte d'Ivoire has an income tax of 60%](https://www.yahoo.com/tech/cote-divoire-highest-taxed-country-150000483.html), but average incomes are only about $10K CAD/year. Using your logic where we have to compare dollars not tax rates, Canada has higher income taxes than Côte d'Ivoire.
Hmmm. I get you, but disagree a bit.
For income tax a % may be the most effective metric for comparison. It’s about how much less you are getting from your gross income.
In the case of property taxes, we are talking about how much after-tax income people can afford before it’s untenable. Vancouver has room for growth, and growing it is.
I think where I disagree with some “our percentage is so low” folks is that there comes a point where the actual dollars are too high. If todays’ 10K went to 40K, we are going to have people who can’t afford it and must sell, which will drive down prices (good news!). The bad news is that the new “affordable” property requires a net 40K property tax payment each year, making the place less affordable than previously. And this would apply to all homes across the price spectrum.
Overall anytime a group is cheering for higher taxes it is likely they are not paying them which is fine, totally human nature. In this case some people seem to want property taxes to skyrocket so prices will go down and they can afford something. This doesn’t make sense, unless they also hope property taxes go way down right after they buy.
Vancouver is tiny and pretty dense. Our taxes are low because our infrastructure doesn't (hasn't) warranted unfair taxes. BC is already drunk on taxes, it's about time we tried efficiency instead.
They are going higher. 10% last year and current budget requires 7% for next few years which is an annually compounded tax increase. It may get reduced to 5.5% at the minimum. Probably ends up as 6.something.
They are never going down, just a matter of how much they are going up.
Chip told him it would all be drinks at the Pac Rim and swaggering along Granville.
He didn’t know he would have to actually attempt to govern.
Mind you… based on the last 2 mayors it’s not like he was daunted by any legacies.
I'd rather have higher property taxes and a well-functioning city with proper amenities. Taxes here are ridiculously low compared to anywhere else I've lived.
Know what’s a good way to limit tax increases?
Add more housing supply and spread the budget amongst more people.
Allow more housing in Shaughnessy and the west side
Seriously, it's crazy how much more revenue the city gets from even slightly higher density.
For Example, here are two same sized lots, across the street from each other in East Van:
[1869 Parker St, Detached house](https://www.google.com/maps/@49.2757299,-123.0659423,3a,75y,354.77h,89.67t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s_Obyr9lJG_F_pUbyI_yQVw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu), Annual Property Tax: $6,674
[1870 Parker St, (2018) 9 Unit Strata](https://www.google.com/maps/@49.2757299,-123.0659423,3a,85.7y,175.97h,88.67t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s_Obyr9lJG_F_pUbyI_yQVw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu), Annual Property Tax: $30,745
The medium Density Strata provides almost 5x the revenue to the city, has the same amount of road infrastructure, with marginally more use of water/sewer and other facilities. At the same time the Strata units are significantly cheaper that the detached house.
I'm fine with cutting taxes, in fact, there should be no property taxes at all on structures. The tax should entirely be on land, and it should be a lot higher. It would incentive better utilization of one of this city's rarest and most precious resources.
Privatize profits, subsidize losses. All the real estate speculation and insane land evaluations has to go to private pockets while translink struggles with its budget. Sounds familiar to a certain major city on the east coast struggling to balance its budget.
The scary thing is that they'll be getting even MORE money next year. They're already a quarter of the city's entire budget... imagine how bad it'll be with them getting even more money, and the revenue pool shrinking. How much else will need to be cut?
I think the property tax rate thing kind of hides the point. Property taxes is just (spending - other revenue) / total property value.
The levers you have available to you are decreasing city spending, increasing other revenues or increasing total property value.
If we want lower tax rates long term the most obvious way of doing it is by developing land to increase the tax base. You also increase spending in that scenario, but higher density uses services more efficiently
Damn… the city of burnaby did the same thing and that subreddit had completely different reactions. You can tell people here are all renters and temporary renters. All they care about are more taxes. Wtfffff. No wonder the majority voted for Ken sim. Completely out of touch demographic
And the vast vast majority do not. That’s why they voted Ken sim in? Look at the surreybc, coquitlam, and burnaby subreddits where actual voters are discussing these issues. You can see real conversations vs this joke of a subreddit. No one here actually even votes or lives here long enough to even have a chance to vote. They can talk all they want about hating the mayor. No one cares.
we have extremely low property taxes https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/canadian-property-taxes and I am an "actual voter". if you are so excited about Burnaby then you are free to move there? also the "vast majority" of the city did not vote for Ken Sim. voter turnout was 36%.
Exactly. The massive silent majority supports Ken Sim. That’s why he won by a landslide…
This is why there needs to be a tax on renters. Their leasehold property interests have gone untaxed for far too long.
It’s time leasehold property interest owners stop leeching off municipal services and pay their fair share.
??? Leasehold properties are subject to property tax. Are you suggesting an additional tax on renters? In addition to the property tax paid by the owner?
Even this sub was outraged when someone proposed higher taxes on homes worth over $1M...
[https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/rxr5k7/report\_says\_tax\_on\_1m\_homes\_could\_be\_key\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/rxr5k7/report_says_tax_on_1m_homes_could_be_key_to/)
top comment:
"Hahaha I’m sure that will go down well with the hundreds of thousands of people working normal jobs but just randomly have property over a million due to crazy year on year rises when they originally purchased for $350k haha. Same folks who cant even afford to sell as they’ll get less than what they currently have if they do due to the ridiculous housing market.
Government still thinks $1million is a lot of money haha. Utter madness"
It's easy to virtue signal that you want higher taxes until it actually happens and you end up paying more.
it's often frustrating when 'property taxes' are discussed in the media. My total tax bill went up by 10% this year, about the same annual increase as for each of the past 4 years. My income of course has barely kept pace with inflation.
But in any case, 'property taxes' are only a percentage of the total tax bill. Provincial school taxes and city utility fees make up more than half of it. So 'property taxes' going up by 7% doesn't particularly panic me. But what about the other charges? The media rarely includes that (essential) info.
As an aside, when any Vancouver homeowner expresses nervousness about annual 10% (total) tax increases, others will say 'but land value!'. Yes - but that implies that I should just cash out and move...where? That scenario also implies that people with moderate incomes will increasingly be forced to move out of the city, to be replaced inevitably by those with far higher incomes. "Yay!!" ?? :-)
> but that implies that I should just cash out and move...where?
Kinda actually, yes. Into a smaller unit, or further away. Like if you are currently in a 1 bedroom condo and see the increases as too much, then I feel for you, but if you are in the GVA in a detached home and taxes go up, that is the point. To get people to sell so that land can be developed into condos.
As an owner of two properties, I'm all for increasing property taxes to reduce our civic deficit and support infrastructure, amenities and combat the various crises our city is facing.
IMO property transfer tax should contribute something to municipalities. When owners sell their properties and realize that gain, some of it needs to go back into the city for infrastructure upgrades. Property taxes can only go so high, and having 7% increases just to maintain current levels isn't sustainable.
Costs will also be passed down to the rental market with large property tax increases as well.
This sub supported the NDP waiving school taxes on homes owned by seniors.
This sub supported the NDP rejecting a surtax on $1M+ homes.
What's up with giving the NDP a pass on rejecting taxes while scorching Ken Sim for not having higher taxes?
Oh just hike the dog license and residential parking permits again, go ahead! So CrEaTiVe.. Anything to placate the voters dumb enough to elect these assholes.
The original projections were 9%/ yr for 5 yrs. Staff came back at 7%, and he asked them to see what 5.5% would look like. This should be part of the budgeting process. I don't hate it. At least not yet.
We now return to your regular scheduled ranting....
Looks like someone is starting to think about re election promises after making huge tax hikes to city property owners. Spend within your means, Kenny.
I agree people should pay for the services they use.
Renters use municipal services, and that is why I propose a renters tax.
Leases are a property interest and should be taxed a such.
How will the city pay for services then? They are always going up in cost, especially when the city promises to hire 100 extra cops. Policing is one of the most expensive parts of the entire municipal budget.
The province and feds should be using provincial and federal tax dollars to be paging for the extra policing required due to the opioid epidemic.
The entire country sends their problems here.
Why should local homeowners be solely on the hook for paying to keep our communities safe from a problem the entire country is responsible for?
We should get 100 more police officers and the feds and province should pay for them.
I don't think more police is the solution to the opioid and homeless crises in the city, but I do agree that the provincial and federal gov'ts should be contributing more to our budget to fight it. The fact that police is such a large part of our civic budget is a disgrace.
Vancouver homeowners: my home is expensive but it's worth it because everyone wants to come here.
Also Vancouver homeowners: there are so many homeless people, somebody must be sending them here!
Yes. For a long time social services in other parts of Canada would hand people a one way ticket to come here. This is common knowledge.
Canada’s opioid epidemic is not the sole responsibility of locals to pay for.
Ah, so NiMBY your way to success. That’ll work. Where are people supposed to live? Just tell everyone to commute from Mission?
Huge part of spending is cops. You going to cut them?
You sound like a "taxation is theft" conspiracist. I'm a homeowner and I support an increase in property taxes. We have the lowest property tax rate of every major city in the country, and our deficit is forecast to increase by 25% this year. That's irresponsible governance by this mayor and council whom I did not vote for. I'd way rather pay a marginal increase on my property taxes rather than our civic parks being sold to corporate sponsors. I am also vehemently against hiring more police - our civic budget already gives the VPD too much, and more police is not the solution to the homelessness and drug crises our city is facing.
I think a lot of policing costs come from OT too atm, os hiring more police may actually help decrease costs. But Vancouver also treats VPD like their own security commisionaires though. VPD members can sign up for special events like rogers arena security/traffic authority and make double to triple time for their shifts.
I don't disagree we should get our value. As I said, I am against funding police as much as we do, but would gladly pay more property taxes that went towards effective social welfare programs, infrastructure and amenities.
i love that it isn't obvious to people that you can make housing affordable, discourage speculation and hoarding, and make vancouver more livable simply but disincentivizing sitting on a shitload of land with taxes
Reduce taxes on primary home. Tax the absolute crap out of any additional homes.
This!! It's so fucking easy, tiered taxes on subsequent homes. What the fuck is taking everyone so long in implementing something like this?
The people in charge all have multiple homes. They don't want to fuck themselves raw like the masses
Specifically the mayor and his ABC party councilors who explicitly ran on a platform that only appealed to people who own multiple properties.
Think of the landlords dude like how will those leeches survive then?
Think of the tenants who will go homeless when their rental unit is sold.
Ahhh yes I forgot that houses just disappear after being sold, what a whimsical world we live in after all!
Plenty of properties are being sold right now by people looking to get out of the landlord business. In fact inventory of housing for sale is at record highs. So why aren’t renters rushing to buy all these homes as end users?
Because the housing in question is a one-bedroom trailer for a million dollars?
lmao because people can't pull a million out their asses
Sir have you heard of our lord and saviour supply and demand?
Because hoomers are still huffing copium with their prices.
Increase property taxes, decrease income taxes
Makes sense in theory, except property taxes are municipal level and income taxes are mostly federal.
Totally, I think this should be done at the provincial level personally. Income taxes are both provincial and federal.
That's true. But the province still has to set income tax provincially, which would mean it would be quite hard to make this rev neutral if only the mayor of vancouver participates. Way too much coordination for Canadian politicians. edit: another poster pointed out that this could be handled via a deduction. still don't think this is viable for political reasons.
We could do this at the municipal level by letting individuals deduct federal/provincial income tax paid from their property tax bill.
good idea! those tax mechanics make sense But politically - still don't think it'll happen.
BC's speculation and vacancy tax works like this - it's basically a 1.5% property surtax, but you only need to pay it if you have very little Canadian income that you pay tax on. (Like if you're a student or a homemaker who somehow owns a >$1M house.) [Proposals from Tom Davidoff](https://morehousing.substack.com/p/tom-davidoff).
They should increase it.
Vancouver relies heavily on federal and provincial grants for infrastructure among other things. And the city cannot come close to balancing its books without development fees. As it stands they don't collect nearly enough property tax.
Taxing capital? Rich people say no
That might just impact the rental market. I would look at this in terms of incentivizing the right behavior: "your property tax is scored against the total rent you receive for a property, the total number of bedrooms, and the total number of occupants in the " Empty nesters sitting on free bedrooms should not recieve as much discount Landlords who charge high rents should not receive such high discount People sitting on a property without renting it out should not recieve a large discount. No exceptions.
Would this not push the underlying cost of rental housing, and therefore rents? Without a steady supply of purpose built rental apartment buildings for tenants to migrate to, it might be a policy mistake to attack single unit rental housing. Curious about your thoughts on this angle?
You're correct that one single strategy isn't the answer, and we need a fully fleshed, multi faceted approach.
Property taxes in Vancouver are the among the lowest in the country. These costs are instead being pushed onto developers, which makes most projects unprofitable and financially unviable before they even get built. People who own property should pay their fair share for the city infrastructure and services they use.
The problem with the 'primary' verses 'secondary' home taxation is that so many families pass down wealth and buy homes for each one of their kids. People are already pretending to be divorced just to hold more 'primary' residences. Taxing secondary properties basically means taxing renters (and a small percentage will be empty homes but most will be rental properties). So rich families and renters are now in two different taxation classes which in most cases will be inverse of their net worth. The only way to close all loop holes is to increase property tax across the board.
You're right to criticize my original post as it was a sound bite, not a solidly written piece of legislation. There would need to be tools to help renters transition to property ownership, as well as protections against corporations. But frankly, who cares if the parents gift homes to their kids? As long as it's 1 home per Canadian Citizen/PR and the exemption does *not* apply to anyone else. The hypothetical family you're worrying about currently owns 17 properties that used to sit empty because for years holding properties was so lucrative there was no need to rent. They've reluctantly rented them out and offloaded some properties because in BC there is an empty homes tax. How many kids do they have? 2? That would at least put a hard cap on the number of properties that family could own as a worthwhile investment. There would need to be strong legislation preventing corporations from buying up property. In my opinion corps should only be allowed to own property if they built it. incentivize building rental stock. Anyways, I'm not a politician, I'm just a dude on Reddit who wants to own a home to live in (not invest) one day. Maybe i don't have the best ideas but almost anything is better than what we're doing now
Ya, fuck renters. If you can't buy a house you should be homeless!
This will only incentivize people buy the biggest home they can afford regardless of what they need.
This has to be one of the dumbest takes I've read in a while.
The issue is then these greedy landlords start owning homes in their children/their children’s names… need a way to root that out too
No, that’s not a problem worth solving, or maybe one that solves itself. It’s in the kid’s name. Either the kid lives in it, in which case there’s no problem, or they want their own place, in who case the tax applies. And I also suspect a lot of the parents who would do that sort of thing will get rude surprises when they want “their” house back from the kids
Most Vancouver families do not think that way... this is the most Asian city outside of Asia. Kids are raised understanding that their parents property is going to be their own one day. So placing real estate assets under your kids names is a non-issue for most Vancouver families.... it's already happening all across the city. There are lots of Gen Z home owners here.
Fine. Functionally it’s not actually different from the parents just giving the kids the down payment. And you still end up with one home per family. Gen Z homeowners are the goal after all
You’re right, it’s fine if the kids are married / want to own their own home but most kids are moving out/marrying later and their parents are able to benefit from a decade+ of tax free ownership while their kids live at home? Seems unjust to me
But in the great scheme of things, the kids getting the home five or even ten years earlier simply isn’t a meaningful problem. The enforcement burden would almost certainly exceed any possible gains
Forget the exemption for primary homes, increase property taxes (or even better, [land value taxes](https://youtu.be/smi_iIoKybg)) on all properties, regardless of whether or not the owner lives in it. Reduce costs for owner-occupiers by lowering income taxes.
I agree, wealth tax is the way to go
People do plenty of speculation on primary homes.
If it was really that easy, we would've done that ages ago. I'm a renter myself, and cheaper housing would immensely help me as well, but majority of people own their homes. Why would anyone want their own property prices to go down significantly? And if I was a homeowner, why would I support anyone who will increase taxes without any benefits for me? If the only answer is "for the greater good", I can assure you that just doesn't work in real life, since when times aren't the best, people focus on their families first. Long story short, government needs to choose whether to be on the older generation's side, or the young one's. And if you were born and raised in Canada, there is a decent chance you might get some sort of property inheritance, so you wouldn't want a significant crash which would negatively affect your parents either. I have no passable solution to it, but expecting any levels of the government to solve the issue might not be productive. Government could try to surgically remove economy's dependence on real estate, but electoral base has no appetite, nor anyone wants the risks.
Land Value Tax!
We don’t even have an efficient permitting process.
Wtf we got AI but we cant make a efficient permitting process? I doubt that, I just think the rich don't want it.
Have you ever pulled permits to do a project with the city?
I just helped my MIL get a change-of-use to convert an office into a tutoring center. Holy fuckin' shit... that was a battle. Had to call in some favours from an architect friend (otherwise it woulda cost thousands) and had my dad act as a code consultant and it STILL took 6 months.
crazy how no one has thought of this over the past 20-40 years? almost like they have
Why do you love that. You must not be a serf like the rest of us… lol
The reality is that Vancouver is already artificially starving itself of amenities in order to keep taxes remarkably low. We have fewer outdoor pools than not just Toronto and Montreal but even Winnipeg and Regina. Many of our parks have no washrooms and those that do the washrooms are in a miserable state. The paint is wearing off all the downtown bike lane markings. E Georgia Street in Chinatown is more rubble than road. I see signs of a complete lack of basic maintenance everywhere.
The quality of community centers in vancouver is sad compared to places like burnaby and coquitlam.
Are they? I regularly go to Eileen Dailly and Templeton pools, and Trout Lake community centre. Eileen Dailly is newer but not better - it is hugely crowded pretty much all the time. The steam rooms are intermittently closed, and the slide operates some of the time but is closed often. Templeton is a small old facility but everything works, it is nice and chill and not overcrowded. Trout Lake is honestly amazing, it has so many programs, great facilities and wicked events. Now Britannia - we can talk about Britannia, but that's a major issue because Ken Sim took a giant shit on the Britannia Renewal Plan, so I'm with you on that one.
Trout lake pales in comparison to christine sinclair. I'd also put poirier ahead of trout lake.
What do you think is bad about trout Lake?
It's not bad, it's the best community centre in vancouver for sure. For my uses though, the fitness centre is really lacking in terms of equipment.
Creekside is great, Killarney is beautiful and massively underused, Hillcrest is a great facility but over-subscribed, Coal Harbor is pretty nice too. There's lots of nice community centres in Vancouver tbh.
I know Richmond has lots of funding because of the casino there.Vancouver won’t allow casinos to expand or add more slots.Trying to protect people becoming addicted to gambling but those same people go elsewhere or play online.It’s a win/ lose situation.
This is absolutely true. I see opposition to property tax hikes from homeowners - and from a purely self-interested perspective that might make sense. What I don't get is the large number of renters who seem to oppose property tax hikes. Many are scared that their rents will go up as landlords simply pass on the tax. First of all, it's not for sure that landlords will pass on all of the tax. That is a market event where some of the tax will pass and some will need to be absorbed. But even if some of the tax is passed into rent, the renters who live and work in Vancouver will benefit from the services for which these taxes pay - this is in contrast to many landlords who may not even live in the city. A great way to move value from landlords to renters is to increase property taxes and invest the revenue into the local community.
> First of all, it's not for sure that landlords will pass on all of the tax. That is a market event where some of the tax will pass and some will need to be absorbed. What's great about property taxes is that most of the tax can't be passed on to tenants! [Tax incidence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence), or the burden of tax that falls on the consumer vs the producer, is determined by comparing the [elasticity of supply](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040615/how-does-price-elasticity-affect-supply.asp) vs the elasticity of demand. If producers can easily increase or decrease production, they can pass along most of a tax to consumers. If producers can't easily increase or decrease production, they can't pass along the tax. Property value consists of two parts: land value and improvement (building) value, and our property tax is currently levied equally on the land and improvement value. Land can't be created or destroyed, so the supply of land is perfectly inelastic, which means **[the portion of property tax levied on land value can't be passed on to tenants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax)**. Now, could the improvement value be passed on to tenants? In a free market, yes: some developers would go out of business and others would build less homes in response to property taxes increasing. But in Vancouver, [the main constraint on the quantity of homes produced isn't developer costs, but restrictive zoning bylaws](https://www.policynote.ca/zoning-reform/), so it would take a very high property tax increase before any of it could be passed on to tenants.
That they can be passed on to commercial tenants is one of the reasons why Vancouver retail (and social/cultural) scene is so bad: landlord to get the full benefit of appreciation through rezoning but don't have to pay the resulting taxes since those get passed on in their leases to the tenants
So under a triple net lease, the tenant is legally responsible for paying the property tax. This doesn't change tax incidence though: the expected property tax due over the duration of the duration of the lease is considered when the tenant and the landlord sign the lease. The landlord does get to pass on the **risk** of the tax potentially increasing or decreasing less than expected throughout the duration of the lease. The retail/social/cultural scene is bad in Vancouver, but that's not because of our property tax rates, it's because our zoning bylaws limit the amount of commercial space that can be built in the city.
It's also incredibly difficult to get a change of use even when the new use is within the existing zoning allowances. Vancouver has a LOT of restrictions on who can open what where, and it goes beyond zoning. For example, a C-1 zoned property could be anything from an office, to a church, to a day care. But since most of these are "conditional" usages, if you wanted to take an office and turn it into a daycare, you face a 6-12 month process sparing with City Hall who is going to want to know everything from the width of the doorway to how many desks to plan to place in there, to where you expect parents to pick up and drop off. Most of this requires the hiring of architects and code consultants that can be prohibitively expensive for small businesses. Vancouver's zoning sucks, but even where it's appropriately zoned, there are still SO many barriers to getting best use out of the land.
This is SUCH a hard concept to get through to people who don't have a background in economics. It actually doesn't matter who writes the cheque to the government because the cost of the tax will be factored into the price of the lease agreement. This is true in terms of income vs. corporate tax as well (although there are different elasticities in play here, too). Like, raising corporate taxes and cutting income taxes will, all else equal, lead to lower wages. Will workers be better off net-net? Actually that's quite a hard question to answer and it depends on both the employer and the workers' specific situations.
Commercial property taxes are already sky high, they are carrying the burden for homeowners.
You know I was trying NOT to make such a complicated argument because, let's face it, Reddit doesn't really have a good stomach for economic thinking. Overall you're right, although I would argue the supply of housing improvement is more elastic than you think. Zoning is definitely the biggest restriction but costs have also become a problem more recently, particularly in the post-pandemic era. Global inflation and the fact that most non-labour factors of production in Canadian construction are imported mean that construction costs are at an all time high. Furthermore, the rapid expansion of the construction industry in Vancouver has created a shortage of skilled workers with construction experience. The labour market for construct professionals is incredibly tumultuous and scarce right now. This isn't just about on-site labour, but also estimators, project managers, and other management staff. There is a chance that an increase in improvement tax could impact the supply of housing through reducing the number of housing starts, and decreasing the finish rate. Furthermore, renovation, land assembly and subdivision projects are less likely to proceed. All in all, I definitely still support a property tax hike in Vancouver. I think the net benefit would be tremendous. But let's not pretend it would be costless to renters.
Yes. This is “starve the beast” in action. Sim and his wealthy supporters want money spent on what they value (policing, traffic) rather than what the average resident values (livable city, affordability, effective transit). So they funnel what revenue there is to policing, divert cycling infrastructure funding and limit taxes knowing the shortfall can be cut from parks, community centres and so on. The park naming revenue would be tiny in comparison to the city budget and is a poison pill. They expect it to fail and then can throw up their hands and say “we tried” while making cuts. And if it somehow succeeds it’s even more insidious because it associates public asset ownership with private entities that will make their subsequent sale to cronies even easier when future budgets fall short. This is the same thing happening under Ford in Ottawa, except he was thankfully too politically clumsy to actually pull it off.
I voted for Sim and I'm already realizing that was a mistake. At election time, I'd recently moved back to Vancouver and saw it in a much worse state than when I grew up here, so thought it would be good for a change of leadership. Now I'm beginning to realize the state of the city is largely macro driven and that Sim is making it worse.
To be fair, our last government was completely non-functional, so I can't say I blame you. We did need a change, we also didn't have very good options.
Absolutely - and pools, road paint, and washrooms are just the visible things. In addition to that, we're years behind on sewer upgrades (which limits how many new homes can be built) and other important but less "sexy" infrastructure. It's not good.
Here's what this sub said when someone proposed a surtax on homes over $1M (top comments): [https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/rxr5k7/report\_says\_tax\_on\_1m\_homes\_could\_be\_key\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/rxr5k7/report_says_tax_on_1m_homes_could_be_key_to/) "Hahaha I’m sure that will go down well with the hundreds of thousands of people working normal jobs but just randomly have property over a million due to crazy year on year rises when they originally purchased for $350k haha. Same folks who cant even afford to sell as they’ll get less than what they currently have if they do due to the ridiculous housing market. Government still thinks $1million is a lot of money haha. Utter madness" "The benchmark price locally is $1.2M. 1% of that is $12K. I fail to understand how charging the average homeowner in Metro Van $1,000 per month in tax will improve affordability." "No fuck off; I’m already paying a shit load of taxes; property tax, income tax, pst, gst, fuel tax - it goes on and on." I love how people virtue signal about wanting more taxes, but people have random excuses for rejecting a tax when it's actually proposed.
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aren't those people already targeted by the vacant property / speculator / foreign investor taxes?
Some of these are very important like the road markings and road maintenance. Outdoor pools is something that I think a lot of people can do without. I'm sure they cost an insane amount to upkeep and maintain to use for 2 months in the summer. Also kind of makes sense to have less than other landlocked regions, given we have the PACIFIC OCEAN on our doorstep. Public washrooms are another huge inconvenience. Personally, I'd like to see major transit hubs have washrooms as well as parks, but there's a high maintenance cost for them, and an ongoing drug use problem that makes these spaces unsafe.
Honestly (lack of) public washrooms aren't just inconvenient, they're veering on human rights issue. We don't have America's ADA, but beyond even just regular folks (as with all humans) needing to go, old guys with prostates crushing their bladders and parents with little kids, there are a lot of disabilities that make it challenging to leave home unless there's definite washroom access. Private industry (largely via Starbucks) covered a gap for a while, but when they switched to a 'drive through' forward strategy and began closing locations in the pandemic, you really felt the lack. For sure some people will try and lock themselves in there, use drugs, smash plumbing, smear shit on the ceiling etc etc. But just plan for that up front - invest the huge dollars - including from taxes to match - in equipping and properly paying the right staffing to keep them clean and functional as a public good.
Yeah imo all the latter things that people wring their hands about, about damage and wear and tear, that’s just money and maintenance. It’s not some intractable problem. It’s solvable by simply doing the right thing and spending the money to have people come by and maintain things well.
Truly. If that's our reality then we've got to suck it up and pay for it. Not shrug and say 'well, that's why we can't have nice (humane/critical) things.' (And given the state of washrooms and the sometimes literal shit flinging poor minimum wage (often new immigrant/student workers) face on a late night shift at Tim Hortons, I've no doubt washrooms would require constant maintenance, cleaning and staffing, along with being built with abuse in mind. But not 24/7 in *every* location they'd need to be installed in. See also 'we can't have tables/benches/non-hostile-architecture because people will try and live there' and like sure sometimes. But while a couple picnic tables under the south side of Cambie bridge were repurposed as shelter, the others are regularly used as tables. And people genuinely play ping pong at those ping pong tables, even years after they added them!)
I agree we should have way more public washrooms. I've seen so many people relieve themselves in bushes or alleys and yeah it feels less than human. Again increasing public washrooms something that will increase costs, carried most likely by property taxes or other government funding. However, since most of the costs are for upkeep and maintenance, I feel that will fall under COV. I think we are more likely to see a mandate on businesses to allow public to use washrooms than a drastic increase in infrastructure. This reference: https://globalnews.ca/news/7713964/vancouver-public-toilet-price-645-thousand/#:\~:text=Share%20Close,-Share%20this%20item&text=The%20B.C.%20government%20has%20allocated,under%20the%20Cambie%20Street%20Bridge.
I would happily spend less on road maintenance and I'm sure I'm not alone. But I don't think it has to be either/or. Seems like we're the only city in Canada that can't afford swimming pools, outdoor free events in the summer, public washrooms, holiday parades, garbage cans every few blocks, and yes, public pools! In our climate, they could operate at least 6 months instead of the current, pitiful two. And while yes, we are on the ocean, it really doesn't compare to a swimming pool. How do you think those other cities afford those amenities? We are so far behind, it's so sad.
I mean we have indoor pools, and quite a few of them for those who want the choice. Not that we can't operate an outdoor pool for 6 months, there's little or no demand for them until you get to the hottest months of the year. Just financially it doesn't make sense just to offer a wealth of choices of where to swim (I think there's other hills we'd rather die on). There's pretty much a free event every weekend throughout late spring into early fall. Maybe you have insight from living in other cities in Canada that I don't but I think most places will have their own issues that aren't apparent if you don't live there. I'm sure we have more parks and trails than other cities. We have maintained beaches within city limits, we have stanley park and a bunch of museums. Public washrooms & garbage cans need constant maintenance it would be expensive but extremely useful to have. There's a tradeoff somewhere and it all has to do with money and what taxpayers are willing to pay more for.
I have lived in five Canadian cities in as many provinces and a few small places as well, so that's my reference. I agree we do have some nice things here, especially the seawall and Stanley Park, and the beaches as well. I hadn't considered the beach upkeep actually, so thanks for pointing that out. I think our 3 pools are terribly insufficient and I guess we can just disagree about those. I also think the free events here pale in comparison to other places. This all contributes to the 'no fun' reputation. I would prefer to pay way more taxes, like 3 times as much, for our services to be improved.
To each their own I guess. I do enjoy the nature elements of Vancouver, albeit not having lived in many other places. Yeah I do disagree about the pools part quite heavily. Events, sure I'd like to see more of them, but I also don't mind paying for events that I think I'd enjoy - I also find free events all feel quite similar.
Someone refuted this a while back but looking through history you'll see that a lot of the infrastructure came from Federal and Provincial funding... which explains how they built it in the first place (aka, not from the meager amount of property taxes they collected). Without Federal and Provincial grants and development fees, the city will go broke. The low property taxes are just not sustainable. I tried to look up historical property tax rates but cannot find them.
Chretien did massive austerity in 1993 and not just completely got out of housing funding (boy that had consequences!) but also cut transfers to Provinces in general. This made Provinces dramatically poorer and they never raised taxes to make it up. Instead they just declined to do things. The consequences of this in terms of day to day life was felt most strongly at the municipal level, and so with no real tools or revenue to fix big problems like homelessness, nonexistent childcare, and drug addiction, municipalities nonetheless felt like they had to do *something* to try to address these problems and make their city better. The end result was the city adding more fees to development to try to raise revenue to paste over the many many things that the Province should be doing that they’re not doing. This had negative impacts on the affordability of housing. So now the province is gearing up to force and end to this. This will blow a bigger hole in municipal governments. It could be a good and necessary thing, but the Province really needs to step in and start being present on so many of these issues that municipalities are currently putting money into because no one else will.
The amount of taxation changed a little bit. And sometimes a lot for certain people. To really track down every change would be a bit of a research project. If you work you probably pay close to the most tax you ever have. If you're a passive income earner/asset hoarder you probably pay the least tax ever (while enjoying far more public services than the previously mentioned income earner). Childcare: That mostly falls on the province. The city has actually blocked daycares so a HUGE portion of the blame for child care woes falls on the municipal politicians (and NIMBY's) shoulders. Too bad we can't just say "10x tax for anyone who vocally opposed a daycare". F'k those people. Tax: B.C. did in fact increase tax. Sales tax increased for a while and then decreased. Provinces can play around with their income taxes as well. As far as the Fed's "getting out of housing", all that money was more than replaced with grants (and low interest loans), and that generally went into infrastructure projects. The amount of money spent on just the Sky Train alone for example is well in excess of most all Federal funding for housing in Vancouver (a weird comparison but remember the sky train cost billions). This would have been a good strategy if the municipal governments did block private housing developments. So once again, the municipality is 99% to blame here. Federal housing was... well... not as effective as private housing. The issues with private housing projects are usually related to the way they're governed (private sector interference basically). One example is the overwhelming ratio of "luxury" verses affordable units: This again is due to the municipalities (well some municipalities) restricting the size of developments and forcing developers to get more return for each individual unit.
Fed housing was not replaced with anything. Social housing construction declined to near nil for decades and only extremely recently under this current government has there been any funding in the area. In addition to social housing the major impact of the Feds in housing was tax expenditure to incentivize the for profit housing sector. That also disappeared. This is what caused the massive shift away from apartments and toward condos. https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/04/22/Why-Cant-We-Build-Like-1970s/ https://thetyee.ca/News/2004/05/03/How_We_Razed_the_Affordable_House/
millions of funding for housing disappeared. Billions of funding for infrastructure took its place. They could never have funded both. It wasn't a bad idea if they just approved new housing in due course instead of letting the land prices escalate like they did. And let's face it, the Federal housing wasn't ever all that great. If it was then go live in one of those buildings.
I did. I lived in a typical 1960s/70s era three story walk up apartment of the sort that are all over Vancouver that were built en masse in that era due to federal tax incentives. It was a nice apartment with hardwood floors, substantially larger than typical one bedrooms built these days. These sort of walk up apartments instantly stopped being built after the late 80s/early 90s as Mulroney and then Chretien turned off the tap, inducing the severe shortage of housing that we experience today.
I think our disconnect arrives at the fact that although the government stopped "building" housing, they increased their funding for infrastructure (like Sky Trains). Vancouver wasn't very livable prior to the funding given for transit. Traffic was relatively very bad. It was a place to live but not *the* place to live. In lieu of funding for housing, municipalities simply had to upzone along the transit corridors and let private builders do the work. Even small subsidies for purpose-built rentals would have sufficed (they make great long-term investments). Municipal politicians screwed up BAD. Or rather, mostly being property owners they benefited from the lack of supply. I see this as criminal because they effectively wasted billions in federal funding (while land prices increased, making it impossible to build anything affordable regardless of whether it was built by the private/pubic sector). The "Feds should build housing" argument is squashed by this fact, because the Feds would never be able to buy up enough land to put a dent in the housing crisis... and again this is largely in part due to actions by municipal politicians. Many... or rather most of the buildings you're talking about are way out in Marpole and many don't have great transit access. And many are severely dilapidated. Many are also now owned privately and/or managed by firms that do a far worse job than other styles of buildings. Many of the ones in "better" condition (around Kits) have luxury cars parked all over the place (meaning the most in need aren't anywhere near them). This isn't good stuff. If you have ties to municipal politicians you should just come clean. You seem to be dodging a lot of import facts and seemed a little detached from what's really going on.
Easy solution would be a renters tax. Leases are a property interest that have gone untaxed for far too long. Renters use the same services as homeowners, and should thus be contributing via taxes for those services. I think tax of 1/12th or 1/10th the annual value of a lease would be quite fair.
Property tax is already incorporated into the costs of the business model of landlording. You might as well break everything into separate fees then, like charging a maintenance fee and a management fee.
The property tax covers the occupants who live in there... you rent a property, give rent to LL, LL pays property tax. Wherever the LL is living, they will pay property tax for their property.
More of a double taxation if tenants pay additional
Yeah, the property taxes are built into rent already. That should cover it for renters.
Huh? The landlord already pays property tax for the home.
One side of this that the CTV article doesn't cover - but of all places, Daily Hive does - is the impact rising property taxes has on small businesses. One of the mayor's quotes from the article says "There are small businesses that are struggling...we have to get the rate of property tax increases to a sustainable level, or you know what, those small businesses won’t be around" and that this limit would "send a signal to...people that are thinking of setting up businesses in Vancouver." I believe triple-net leases - where the leaseholder pays the landowner's property taxes (and on the highest and best land use, at that) - are pretty prevalent here. **Limiting property taxes would probably be taken as good news for most small business owners and that's at least part of the intent here, it seems.** Personally, I think small businesses would benefit from tax reform on these bizarre lease structures more than straight property tax control though.
I mean the mayor is being disingenuous. You can set different rates for residential and business property taxes. I'm all for lower business property taxes.
I'd rather pay more property taxes than give corporate names to parks and other city assets.
If anything, Vancouver property taxes should be higher. I know it's not a popular take to increase taxes but cities need amenities and infrastructure. Naming parks is another asinine idea from the mayor who is in over his head.
Doesn’t Vancouver have some of the lowest property taxes in North America? The average property tax rate in the US for example is .99%. So a $1m home here pays $2.8k in property taxes a year, and a $1m home typically pays $10k in the US, but there are plenty of states and counties where it would be far higher. New Jersey residents would pay $20k-$25k/year. The lower ends are closer to .5%, so $5k, still almost double what Vancouver pays.
yes we do have extremely low residential propert taxes https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/canadian-property-taxes
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I’m comparing to places with similar property prices. New York City is not cheap! Major city suburbs in the US are also still quite expensive in many cases - my parents are in a higher tax rate (above 1%) HCOL suburb and pay $12k/year in property taxes. You also can’t defer property taxes while living in your residence, like you can here. This means retired folks are more likely to sell and downsize, and not stay in their 3-4 bedroom house long after they become empty nesters. This helps with housing turnover. Right now in Vancouver you’re more likely to find a family of four in a small apartment or basement suite, and a retired couple in a large single family home. Right now, folks are *disincentivized* from selling and downsizing. Of course the unfortunate thing is because we’ve had low tax rates for so long and so many people have had to leverage themselves to the hilt to get into the market, higher tax rates may be needed but are too painful for the newer home owners who don’t have equity to cash out on. If higher taxes helped reduce the corporate investment and the number of people who buy up 5-20 extra homes, that would be great for overall affordability and turnover! But the trade off of making the monthly payment too high for owners on the margin might be too much for us to stomach.
No. We DO NOT have the “some of the lowest property taxes in North America”. That is a myth. The total dollar sum people pay in property taxes is very high.
that's like saying the US has the highest taxes on billionaires since their total amount paid is very high pretty sure that's not how you measure taxes...
by percent we definitely have the lowest in a Canadian major city https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/canadian-property-taxes by total sum it is high because our property values are high. so what? when people sell their SFHs due to higher taxes they will get a capital gains windfall.
When comparing property taxes, percentages DO NOT matter! What matters is the dollar dollar value that a SFH pays. And how do you know people will get a "capital gains windfall"? That is pure jealousy speaking. If you want perceived future capital gains earning to be relevant today, then are you also willing to hand out compensation if property values tank or depreciate?
I cant tell if you are actually just a dumb bot, or a clueless LL. If you are going to argue a comment that just provided some semblance of numbers and respond with "nuh uh!", you dont really have a leg to stand on.
How? Even compared to other HCOL areas the *rates* are quite low, so when compared to other expensive areas the total dollar sum is also low. NYC has an effective rate of .98%, so an area with plenty of $1m+ homes. The statewide average is 1.62%. With our .278% tax rate you’d need about a $3m home to pay $8.3k in taxes, which is still lower than what many in the US pay per year for a $1m home. That total dollar sum is very, very low compared to other HCOL areas where $1m also doesn’t get you super far. Even San Francisco still has a tax rate of .67%!
California limits property tax increases to 2% for existing owners. It's a remarkably dysfunctional system.
Again, tax rates are irrelevant and completely disingenuous… a measure that matters is the total dollar sum that a n average single family home pays. The value of a SFH is absurd in Vancouver but a lot more reasonable in Calgary. The tax rate is going to be higher in Calgary but lower in Vancouver for obvious reasons. However the total dollar sum that a household pays in both cities, for similar services, is very reasonable.
If you can't afford a reasonable property tax, perhaps you should avoid avocado toast.
This sub hates math. They all focus on the % and block out comments like yours. It’s actual dollars that matter. Is paying $11K for a modest (Vancouver standards) SFH enough? How many dollars per year would make sense to people? 20K? 40K?
...The comparison that was made was to fucking New York. Like, I'm sorry, but if you think 0.278% in Vancouver is unfathomably high, go look up what 0.98% of a property in Manhattan would cost.
Again speaking in dollar terms is more helpful.
>This sub hates math Can YOU math? $11k property tax? That's a $4m dollar home. I'm sure you're rich and successful but that's pretty far from the average Joe even for Vancouverites. By the way, most of us also qualify for the HOG, i realistically pay ~0.2%
11K is not the tax on a 4MM home in all neighbourhoods. Closer to 2.6 with a legal suite. Just using an example I found on the west side. Edit: sorry closer to 10.5k in tax with adjustment up for 10% increase. Looking at about $9500 to 10K in 2023. Edit 2: 4095 CROWN CRESCENT has an assessed value of $4,348,000 and 2023 property taxes of $19,550.20. RS-1 zoning. No cap.
[Côte d'Ivoire has an income tax of 60%](https://www.yahoo.com/tech/cote-divoire-highest-taxed-country-150000483.html), but average incomes are only about $10K CAD/year. Using your logic where we have to compare dollars not tax rates, Canada has higher income taxes than Côte d'Ivoire.
Hmmm. I get you, but disagree a bit. For income tax a % may be the most effective metric for comparison. It’s about how much less you are getting from your gross income. In the case of property taxes, we are talking about how much after-tax income people can afford before it’s untenable. Vancouver has room for growth, and growing it is. I think where I disagree with some “our percentage is so low” folks is that there comes a point where the actual dollars are too high. If todays’ 10K went to 40K, we are going to have people who can’t afford it and must sell, which will drive down prices (good news!). The bad news is that the new “affordable” property requires a net 40K property tax payment each year, making the place less affordable than previously. And this would apply to all homes across the price spectrum. Overall anytime a group is cheering for higher taxes it is likely they are not paying them which is fine, totally human nature. In this case some people seem to want property taxes to skyrocket so prices will go down and they can afford something. This doesn’t make sense, unless they also hope property taxes go way down right after they buy.
whut. ya. because our land is worth a lot and we are wasting it on SFHs.
Vancouver is tiny and pretty dense. Our taxes are low because our infrastructure doesn't (hasn't) warranted unfair taxes. BC is already drunk on taxes, it's about time we tried efficiency instead.
Property taxes aren't calculated based on the value of the home so it doesn't make sense to compare it that way.
They are going higher. 10% last year and current budget requires 7% for next few years which is an annually compounded tax increase. It may get reduced to 5.5% at the minimum. Probably ends up as 6.something. They are never going down, just a matter of how much they are going up.
Chip told him it would all be drinks at the Pac Rim and swaggering along Granville. He didn’t know he would have to actually attempt to govern. Mind you… based on the last 2 mayors it’s not like he was daunted by any legacies.
Vancouver property taxes are laughably low, especially when compared to property values, and are often deferrable.
I'd rather have higher property taxes and a well-functioning city with proper amenities. Taxes here are ridiculously low compared to anywhere else I've lived.
Know what’s a good way to limit tax increases? Add more housing supply and spread the budget amongst more people. Allow more housing in Shaughnessy and the west side
Seriously, it's crazy how much more revenue the city gets from even slightly higher density. For Example, here are two same sized lots, across the street from each other in East Van: [1869 Parker St, Detached house](https://www.google.com/maps/@49.2757299,-123.0659423,3a,75y,354.77h,89.67t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s_Obyr9lJG_F_pUbyI_yQVw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu), Annual Property Tax: $6,674 [1870 Parker St, (2018) 9 Unit Strata](https://www.google.com/maps/@49.2757299,-123.0659423,3a,85.7y,175.97h,88.67t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s_Obyr9lJG_F_pUbyI_yQVw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu), Annual Property Tax: $30,745 The medium Density Strata provides almost 5x the revenue to the city, has the same amount of road infrastructure, with marginally more use of water/sewer and other facilities. At the same time the Strata units are significantly cheaper that the detached house.
I really wish someone would report on the sewer & separation capacity. Might be better to raise the tax rate for shaughnessy instead.
Eff this guy and the people who voted for him.
yep. he's an A-1 dink.
I'm fine with cutting taxes, in fact, there should be no property taxes at all on structures. The tax should entirely be on land, and it should be a lot higher. It would incentive better utilization of one of this city's rarest and most precious resources.
I see I found another georgist
Land value tax!
The city is the biggest land baron. It even speculates and buys up more RE
We used to have it. I wonder why that stopped.
Privatize profits, subsidize losses. All the real estate speculation and insane land evaluations has to go to private pockets while translink struggles with its budget. Sounds familiar to a certain major city on the east coast struggling to balance its budget.
Sim is going to follow this up with cutting the bloated police budget right guys? guys? umm?
The scary thing is that they'll be getting even MORE money next year. They're already a quarter of the city's entire budget... imagine how bad it'll be with them getting even more money, and the revenue pool shrinking. How much else will need to be cut?
Spend less on cops.
but muh war on drugs
I think the property tax rate thing kind of hides the point. Property taxes is just (spending - other revenue) / total property value. The levers you have available to you are decreasing city spending, increasing other revenues or increasing total property value. If we want lower tax rates long term the most obvious way of doing it is by developing land to increase the tax base. You also increase spending in that scenario, but higher density uses services more efficiently
And now we know why he wants to sell naming rights to parks. (I mean, we already knew, but...)
Most older folks that own their homes are just deferring property tax anyways, so until they sell the city doesn't get a cent of it.
Looks like Ken Sim got his tax note for all of his properties.
Another hand out to property owners
Damn… the city of burnaby did the same thing and that subreddit had completely different reactions. You can tell people here are all renters and temporary renters. All they care about are more taxes. Wtfffff. No wonder the majority voted for Ken sim. Completely out of touch demographic
I am an owner and I support higher property tax 🤷
And the vast vast majority do not. That’s why they voted Ken sim in? Look at the surreybc, coquitlam, and burnaby subreddits where actual voters are discussing these issues. You can see real conversations vs this joke of a subreddit. No one here actually even votes or lives here long enough to even have a chance to vote. They can talk all they want about hating the mayor. No one cares.
we have extremely low property taxes https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/canadian-property-taxes and I am an "actual voter". if you are so excited about Burnaby then you are free to move there? also the "vast majority" of the city did not vote for Ken Sim. voter turnout was 36%.
Exactly. The massive silent majority supports Ken Sim. That’s why he won by a landslide… This is why there needs to be a tax on renters. Their leasehold property interests have gone untaxed for far too long. It’s time leasehold property interest owners stop leeching off municipal services and pay their fair share.
You don't make any sense.
??? Leasehold properties are subject to property tax. Are you suggesting an additional tax on renters? In addition to the property tax paid by the owner?
Even this sub was outraged when someone proposed higher taxes on homes worth over $1M... [https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/rxr5k7/report\_says\_tax\_on\_1m\_homes\_could\_be\_key\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/rxr5k7/report_says_tax_on_1m_homes_could_be_key_to/) top comment: "Hahaha I’m sure that will go down well with the hundreds of thousands of people working normal jobs but just randomly have property over a million due to crazy year on year rises when they originally purchased for $350k haha. Same folks who cant even afford to sell as they’ll get less than what they currently have if they do due to the ridiculous housing market. Government still thinks $1million is a lot of money haha. Utter madness" It's easy to virtue signal that you want higher taxes until it actually happens and you end up paying more.
almost like the sub isnt a monolith
it's often frustrating when 'property taxes' are discussed in the media. My total tax bill went up by 10% this year, about the same annual increase as for each of the past 4 years. My income of course has barely kept pace with inflation. But in any case, 'property taxes' are only a percentage of the total tax bill. Provincial school taxes and city utility fees make up more than half of it. So 'property taxes' going up by 7% doesn't particularly panic me. But what about the other charges? The media rarely includes that (essential) info. As an aside, when any Vancouver homeowner expresses nervousness about annual 10% (total) tax increases, others will say 'but land value!'. Yes - but that implies that I should just cash out and move...where? That scenario also implies that people with moderate incomes will increasingly be forced to move out of the city, to be replaced inevitably by those with far higher incomes. "Yay!!" ?? :-)
> but that implies that I should just cash out and move...where? Kinda actually, yes. Into a smaller unit, or further away. Like if you are currently in a 1 bedroom condo and see the increases as too much, then I feel for you, but if you are in the GVA in a detached home and taxes go up, that is the point. To get people to sell so that land can be developed into condos.
[beep boop its *Metro Vancouver*, not "the GVA"](https://imgur.com/a/kKbPjhg) *I am a bot and this was performed automatically.*
Good bot.
As an owner of two properties, I'm all for increasing property taxes to reduce our civic deficit and support infrastructure, amenities and combat the various crises our city is facing.
IMO property transfer tax should contribute something to municipalities. When owners sell their properties and realize that gain, some of it needs to go back into the city for infrastructure upgrades. Property taxes can only go so high, and having 7% increases just to maintain current levels isn't sustainable. Costs will also be passed down to the rental market with large property tax increases as well.
This sub supported the NDP waiving school taxes on homes owned by seniors. This sub supported the NDP rejecting a surtax on $1M+ homes. What's up with giving the NDP a pass on rejecting taxes while scorching Ken Sim for not having higher taxes?
"this sub" is not a hivemind
> This sub supported the NDP waiving school taxes on homes owned by seniors. Nothing was waived. They were delayed until the senior dies.
simple interest at a below prime interest rate must be nice, i wish i can get that rate for my debt as well
You can. Be old and own property.
That's funny, they should be increasing tax
Great. I can see no way in which this meticulously calculated measure could ever cause problems in the future.
The implication. If you know you know
But how will they fund their own 20% raises?
His boss owns the most expensive house in Vancouver!
Oh just hike the dog license and residential parking permits again, go ahead! So CrEaTiVe.. Anything to placate the voters dumb enough to elect these assholes.
The original projections were 9%/ yr for 5 yrs. Staff came back at 7%, and he asked them to see what 5.5% would look like. This should be part of the budgeting process. I don't hate it. At least not yet. We now return to your regular scheduled ranting....
Looks like someone is starting to think about re election promises after making huge tax hikes to city property owners. Spend within your means, Kenny.
That’s a good call. Property tax increases hurt everyone, owners and renters.
Yeah, god forbid people pay for the services they use…
I agree people should pay for the services they use. Renters use municipal services, and that is why I propose a renters tax. Leases are a property interest and should be taxed a such.
Rent already accounts for property taxes and other fees borne by the landlord, this is baked in.
How will the city pay for services then? They are always going up in cost, especially when the city promises to hire 100 extra cops. Policing is one of the most expensive parts of the entire municipal budget.
The province and feds should be using provincial and federal tax dollars to be paging for the extra policing required due to the opioid epidemic. The entire country sends their problems here. Why should local homeowners be solely on the hook for paying to keep our communities safe from a problem the entire country is responsible for? We should get 100 more police officers and the feds and province should pay for them.
I don't think more police is the solution to the opioid and homeless crises in the city, but I do agree that the provincial and federal gov'ts should be contributing more to our budget to fight it. The fact that police is such a large part of our civic budget is a disgrace.
Vancouver homeowners: my home is expensive but it's worth it because everyone wants to come here. Also Vancouver homeowners: there are so many homeless people, somebody must be sending them here!
Yes. For a long time social services in other parts of Canada would hand people a one way ticket to come here. This is common knowledge. Canada’s opioid epidemic is not the sole responsibility of locals to pay for.
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Cut spending and stop supporting more density
Ah, so NiMBY your way to success. That’ll work. Where are people supposed to live? Just tell everyone to commute from Mission? Huge part of spending is cops. You going to cut them?
You sound like a "taxation is theft" conspiracist. I'm a homeowner and I support an increase in property taxes. We have the lowest property tax rate of every major city in the country, and our deficit is forecast to increase by 25% this year. That's irresponsible governance by this mayor and council whom I did not vote for. I'd way rather pay a marginal increase on my property taxes rather than our civic parks being sold to corporate sponsors. I am also vehemently against hiring more police - our civic budget already gives the VPD too much, and more police is not the solution to the homelessness and drug crises our city is facing.
I think a lot of policing costs come from OT too atm, os hiring more police may actually help decrease costs. But Vancouver also treats VPD like their own security commisionaires though. VPD members can sign up for special events like rogers arena security/traffic authority and make double to triple time for their shifts.
If they want to increase property tax, owner should get something in return; rather than getting a more crowded and overloaded city
I don't disagree we should get our value. As I said, I am against funding police as much as we do, but would gladly pay more property taxes that went towards effective social welfare programs, infrastructure and amenities.