Capital Gains Tax on Primary Residences

You may have noticed as I have that housing prices in Burlington have increased incredibly. On my street with modest family homes, the house prices have doubled in a matter of 8 years. It is hard to fathom how our children could afford to stay and purchase a home in the place where they were born and raised.

BNN Bloomberg states that ‘the heat has bled into bedroom communities, pushing prices in some outlying areas up more than 30 per cent over the past year.’ Many count on our principal residences as investments to help us in retirement or as inheritances to our children. The sale of a principal residence is done without the imposition of a capital gains tax at this time. Since 2017 however all sales of principal residences have had to be reported to the CRA. Some say that it is to ensure that those ‘flipping houses’ are paying the appropriate taxes as they are essentially operating a business in the renovating and sale of homes. Others say that the government is assessing the revenue that could be taken from applying a capital gains tax to a principal residence. Still others say that this is being considered to tame the rising cost of purchasing a home when demand is so high and supply relatively low.

But with a budget such as was presented by the Liberals with a lot of spending and a huge deficit, they will be looking for revenue somewhere. Let’s not allow it to be on taxing our homes!

Ian Vandaelle, BNN Bloomberg  https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/scotia urges against capital gains tax on primary residences