Hidden property owners and tax cheats targeted
Neil Sharma
REP
The British Columbia government is continuing its shakeup of the province’s real estate, this time targeting hidden property owners and tax cheats.
The registry will make real estate ownership a matter of public record and empower law enforcement agencies and tax auditors to pursue tax evasion, fraud and money laundering with competency. Finance Minister Carole James emphasized the urgency with which the province is purging its real estate of grafters.
“Right now in B.C., real estate investors can hide behind numbered companies, offshore and domestic trusts, and corporations,” James said in a statement. “Ending this type of hidden ownership in real estate will help us fight tax evasion, tax fraud and money laundering.”
The registry, said to be the first of its kind in Canada, should not come as much of a surprise. Last month, the Canada Revenue Agency revealed that the Vancouver and Toronto real estate markets are replete with tax cheats who have collectively shirked paying almost $600mln in taxes.
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver has endorsed the registry.
“Any time that the government places in measures that make people accountable to pay the taxes that are due, when 99% of the citizens are paying their taxes, we certainly endorse those changes,” Phil Moore, the board’s president, told News 1130.
While the real estate board did spend a couple of years consulting the government on this registry, Moore blames the 15% foreign buyer tax for the growing ranks of investors who hide behind numbered companies. However, he also believes the registry will equip the government with depth of information.
“Better measures to know who really owns the house when the house transfers to another party’s name. There’s going to be more of an accountability of a paper trail.”
However, there is not much of any indication about how the registry will help people struggling with the cost of housing—without a doubt the most immediate issue pertaining to the city’s real estate.
“It’s really going to be difficult to understand if it’s going to really create more affordable housing. It really depends on how the government’s going to structure this. We really support the government collecting the tax that they’re owed.”
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