I just showed an example where you are punishing a person who's income has remained the same, it hasn't changed, yet her tax burden has almost doubled!
The government clearly announced this wouldn't impact BC taxpayers, only to find out that it will indeed impact them. That's not exactly the way our tax system and society was structured to work. This is in fact a form of an asset tax, are you okay if the government decided to tax your savings the same way? Many of these people have paper assets that have grown substantially, but it doesn't give them the means to suddenly pay thousands and thousands more in asset taxes.
While these measures may cool the market it certainly doesn't fix the systemic issues that caused the markets to continue spiking higher and higher.
Hey Vanlord first off thanks for not turning this conversation into banter and giving some thought in your response.
There will be a few stories, such as the example you have given, where people are not able to afford this tax because their capital has grown substantially and they don't have the income to pay for these unexpected taxes. The simple solution to that is to sell your asset that has grown exponentially over the years. This is a non-issue when you are trying to regulate a runaway housing market from a provincial perspective.
There are currently 4.5 million people living in BC, what percentage of this number are going to have this issue vs what percentage is struggling to find living space or overstretching income to pay for rent or mortgage. Lets say there are 2000 (arbitrary number), this accounts for 0.0444% of the province's population.
I think we need to step away from individual examples and look at the province from a high level perspective. When you are managing 4.5million people, you can't focus on how a few thousand people will feel, specially when it's "1st world problems".
Most people in this city are doing just fine...Lots of jobs, more assets then ever, but yes the poor need some help and support along with the young people that are trying to get established (I struggled the same way 20+ years ago) Rent was expensive, and it was tough to find a place, but I managed to pull myself up by the boot straps and make it work, eventually I got a decent paying job and got some promotions and started to get my feet under me. I know several people in their 20's who are well on their way to being successful and rich, but they did work hard on their educations, established themselves in their career, sacrificed and are saving a ton of money and will be in a position to purchase a property in the near future, even at current prices.
I personally rent my basement suites for the pretty much the same price as they were 10 years ago and I see the poor choices that tenants are making with how they live, spend and prioritize a certain lifestyle over things like education and advancing their careers.
You maybe part of the Internet Mob but I will bet that all of the sheeple will turn against these measures in the next 2-4 years when it hits our economy and all the jobs disappear because we killed off our economy, unlike Alberta's problems, BC's economic troubles will be self-inflicted. Lets wait and see (I'll buy you dinner if I'm wrong). Can the NDP pull off a miracle and cool housing while keeping the economy growing.
This is not an accurate representation of the province as a whole, most people are far from "doing fine". We can't go by individual experiences because the sample size is not significant enough to mean anything. I'm currently working in a 2-billion dollar project and my office is filled with professionals and we all make 6+ figures. The general consensus in the office is it's extremely difficult to live in Vancouver because of the housing prices. This is coming from a group of highly educated successful professionals (We are all P.Eng with a combination of MBA/Masters/PhD/PMP). But again, this is just a small sample of the population so my story is statistically insignificant. A better source of data is statistics Canada.
Let's assume a reasonable income is 75,000 annual to be able to rent (not buy) and live in Vancouver. According to 2015 data (i know it's old) this is within the top 16% earners of the population. This means the other 84% is either struggling, living in poor conditions or over extending their budget and likely going in debt. Some simply are unable to afford and move out or live in hostels. Keep in mind that these stats are Canada wide - BC incomes are less in comparison. Please note that this is just a simple study I just punched in some quick numbers - use simply for broad perspective.
I don't think it's fair to expect NDP to grow the economy while cooling house prices either - these conditions fundamentally counter each other. The damage has already been done by the previous government, there is no painless way out of this.
This expectation parallels the following:
Project manager A was given a 1 billion dollar budget to build an tower. Manager A decides to cut cost and get ahead of schedule by buying sub-standard low quality materials, hiring under-qualified workers and excluding quality control activities from the schedule. From the outside, the project looks like it's doing great - ahead of schedule and below budget etc... Then Manager A hands the job to Manager B who is aware of all the wrong doings Manager A has committed.
Would you expect Manager B to be able to fix the issues and problems Manager A caused and stay and budget and schedule? - Not a chance in hell.
Would you want Manager B to build the building properly before an accident occurs? - of course. But you can't expect him to stay with the original budget and schedule.