联邦政府可能考虑的三种加税方法 （环球邮报）

枭雄本色

Three ways the federal government may increase taxes on principal residences



Tim Cestnick

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Special to The Globe and Mail

Published 2 days ago Updated September 17, 2020

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Last week, I wrote about the possibility
that our government might look to tax principal residences in some way.
Here are the facts that we have working against homeowners: 1) The
comments of those who are advising this government on housing wealth and
inequality have revealed an attitude that many Canadians have “won the
lottery” with the value of homes increasing so much, and that the
glorification of home ownership is a “regressive canard”;
2) the principal residence exemption has been abused by some in the
past who have claimed it when perhaps they shouldn’t have; 3) the homes
of Canadians represent their largest store of value for most people; and
4) the support provided by the government during this COVID-19 pandemic
is almost assuredly going to mean tax increases in the future.

The
question then becomes: What might the government do to increase taxes
on principal residences? I think there are three possibilities.

The U.S. example

The first possibility is that the government may introduce tax rules
similar to those in the United States. South of the border, there’s a
limit on the gain on the sale of a home that can be sheltered from tax.
Specifically, there is a US$250,000 “exclusion” (that is, exempted from
tax), which is increased to US$500,000 for a married couple filing
jointly.

There’s another catch here. To qualify for the exclusion in the U.S., you have to have lived
in the home for two years out of the last five years leading up to the
sale of the residence (there are a couple of other tests that must be
met, but they’re generally not an issue for most U.S. taxpayers).

Further, if a taxpayer in the U.S. owns more than one residence (a city home and
a cottage, for example), they can’t simply choose which residence
should be sheltered from tax. There’s a test that must be applied to
determine which of the properties was really the “main home." In Canada,
we can designate any eligible property as our principal residence,
albeit we can only fully shelter from tax on one property for each
family unit.

As an aside, if you’re a U.S. citizen or green-card holder living in
Canada and you own your Canadian home, a sale of your home may currently
be tax-free in Canada but may be taxable in the U.S. So, speak to a tax
professional about this.

Now, there’s also the issue of mortgage interest. In Canada, we can’t
generally deduct it. The government’s rationale is that we don’t
generally pay tax on the sale of a principal residence, and so there
shouldn’t be a deduction for interest to buy the place. If the
government were to start taxing principal residences, you might expect
that we’d be entitled to deduct our mortgage interest – but don’t hold
your breath.

Taxpayers in the U.S. can deduct mortgage interest on up to US$375,000 of debt (US$750,000 for
a married couple filing jointly). The limits are higher (US$500,000 and
US$1-million, respectively) for mortgages taken out on or before Dec.
15, 2017. There are other limits, too, that can apply in certain
situations.

Allowing mortgage interest deductibility is not guaranteed if our tax rules change here in
Canada. In fact, I’d be surprised if we were granted this benefit,
because it would mean a loss of tax revenue in the short term, which the
government might make back at the time a home is sold – potentially
years down the road.

The wealth tax

Rather
than simply copying the approach in the U.S., our government could
introduce a wealth tax. This type of tax is common in several European
countries (France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Italy
come to mind). In some cases, the wealth tax has morphed into a tax on
real estate alone. In France, for example, the rules changed in 2018 to
exclude financial assets and to only tax real estate with a value of

枭雄本色

环球邮报是不是嗅到了什么风声。上次温哥华外国交易税，就是因为一个中国炒房客的事情被环球邮报揭露。这次难道。。。。。

Cobra

第一种可能性是政府可能会引入税收规则
与美国相似。在边界以南，有一个
限制可以免税出售房屋的收益。
具体来说，有250,000美元的“排除项”（即免于
对已婚夫妇的申请增加到500,000美元
共同。

这里还有另一个陷阱。要获得在美国被排除在外的资格，您必须居住
在过去五年中的两年内
出售房屋（必须进行其他两项测试
满足，但对于大多数美国纳税人来说，这通常不是问题）。

此外，如果美国的纳税人拥有不止一个住所（城市房屋和
例如一间小屋），他们不能简单地选择哪个住所
应该免税。必须进行一项测试
确定哪些物业确实是“主要住所”。在加拿大，
我们可以指定任何符合条件的财产作为我们的主要住所，
尽管我们只能完全免除一项财产的税项
家庭单位。

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