Why Most Young People Can’t Buy a Home in Vancouver

Did you know that if you sell a house in Vancouver, if it’s your primary residence, you pay no tax on the profit?

The lack of any capital gains tax on selling one’s primary residence contributes to the manic increase in housing prices in Vancouver.

It’s also the reason why most young people are too late to be able to afford to buy a home in Vancouver.

As it currently exists, rapidly rising home prices in cities like Vancouver and Toronto effectively exclude most people born later from home ownership and the chance to reap untaxed capital gains.

If we put a capital gains tax on the sometimes millions of dollars people are “earning” as they sell their homes in Vancouver, even 25% or 50%, that would help decelerate housing prices. But right now, the lack of capital gains taxes is yet another subsidy to the rich, and anyone who at some point was lucky enough to purchase their home, and kick in the teeth for young people.

As we pivot to a new world based on greater economic inequality, we need to redistribute this grotesque welfare for the rich scheme.

Because honestly, if you’re going to sell your Vancouver home and profit by half a million or one or two million, are you really in any position to complain about paying 25% tax on all that free money?

And this week, the prime minister failed Canadians again by leaving the primary residence capital gains tax rate at…wait for it…zero %.

Enough already!