Until morale improves.
Blacklock’s- Feds Want 3% Irish Land Tax
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland yesterday said cabinet would like to adopt an Irish-style three percent annual federal tax on vacant lots.
“Such taxes would be intended to discourage speculative holding of land and making it more costly to keep land undeveloped,” the finance department wrote in a Consultation Paper. “Taxes could provide a source of revenue for various orders of government which could be used to fund the construction of more new homes,” it added.

Vote Liberal and get more punitive taxation. Chrystia Freelunch knows nothing about the economy.
This is only the start, they have clearly stated they want to implement a total wealth tax, annually, on every canadian resident, except illegal ones of course.
It was never your money in the first place of course, so don’t complain.
You didn’t build that … or develop that property … your government did. Well, with taxation like this … the government will be the ONLY ones with any money left for development. Can you just imagine the inefficiency of government-as-developer? The housing deficit will explode.
Hey, Kenji. For $7.5 billion, we got 8 charging stations here in the US.
So, Canada ought to get at least one or two half-completed 12-unit hi-rises, and a half-dozen single story not-quite-ready-to-move-in houses out of all that tax money.
The government homes will be designed to be … culturally sensitive … to the newcomers. Homes that look better suited for desert climates.
The hideous junior high class president thinks she is now omniscient when it comes to economics. Ninety percent of the land this will negatively affect is not anywhere near the cities with high cost housing. For cing development of such properties is insane. Parliament is infested with such Jacobins and Bolsheviks.
“[H]ideous junior high class president” LOL A very good description of her. As I’ve said many times before, Chrystia Freeland’s is “Election”’s power-mad Tracy Flick without the obvious visual appeal of Reese Witherspoon. Freeland’s – like Flick’s – voice is redolent of condescension and entitlement and she is a person of intense and unremitting awfulness (or AWFL-ness)
‘Election’. a truly masterpiece of comedy inspired by
and even based on real life somewhere.
It is indeed.
The world is full of Tracy Flicks, especially as Western society becomes more and more feminized and “the fairer sex” (LOL) assumes a more dominant role socioculturally
One of the things about this hairbrained proposal – and something it seems to have in common with many Canadian-devised systems – is that its originators – because Canadians are by nature, conventional, trusting and complacent – cannot conceive of all the possible ways that such a tax could be gamed by bad actors. The Law of Unintended Consequences – i.e., the unintended consequences of any public policy proposal or change are almost invariably more dramatic than the intended consequences – is ALWAYS at work, although Canadians seems to willfully blind to its applicability.
Isn’t Mark Carney the actual finance minister now? I wonder if the other companies he works for are hoping legislation like this will allow them to scoop up tax distressed property for below market prices at foreclosure auctions. As a Liberal Party consultant, he is exempt from conflict of interest laws.
If you go all the way to the top of the food chain of national and international power brokers, there are very few women. Progressives say they want to break the white, male backroom boys hierarchy but that’s exactly who you find at the apex of progressive power strictures.
This is typical of politicians. A blame free way of getting more of your money.
Wonder if this will apply to indian reservations?? Or are they ‘special’ and therefore exempt?
They ARE special and exempt because the Feds own all land on Indian reserves and Indians on reserves pay no taxes. Everybody else pays their taxes.
Perhaps a 3% reduction in civil servants is in order.
30%. No less
30% X 3
I expect this idiot has never heard of developers land banking for the future.
Can you imagine what a POS Liberal Party of Canada
government we have, that scours the planet looking at other countries governments ways to tax people, and then tries to bring those forms of taxation to Canada ?
A communist/solcialist loves a taxation. Once had a neighbour, who had immigrated from the Soviet Union, in 1973. In one conversation, I mentioned how he must appreciate the amount of money he was making in Canada. He told me he made very good money in Russia and Latvia. The problem was the level of taxation, which was exorbitant. He appreciated Canada of the 1970’s and did quite well financially as a carpenter.
When Zorba the Greek retired, he found the cost of living ex-Zorbatant…
First, isn’t this once again the federal government encroaching and interfering in area of provincial responsibility?
Second, the tax will be sold to the public as a way to stop land hoarding by developers but this could be done without a tax. For instance, provinces and municipalities could require homes to be built on zoned lots within a defined time limit. Once the time limits are exceeded then the lots must be sold at below the original purchase price (as a deterrent to land flipping). No new tax grab required.
Finally, there’s the potential of this tax to be extended to vacant farm land (intentionally or unintentionally). I looked up the Irish vacant, zoned land taxation scheme. Active farmland was not excluded in the initial legislation. The Irish government is making promises and assurances that farmland will be excluded but they and the environmentalists want the law to go into effect before the exclusion is added. Being cynical, I suspect the Trudeau Liberals would not only not exclude farmland but expand a vacant land tax to intentionally harm the agricultural sector as part of their climate change agenda.
How long would it be until it was just a 3% property tax on all property? One, maybe two election cycles.
In Ontario there is MPAC for valuing every piece of land. Think a national version with lots of Lib comfy fur appointments. I’m guessing AB land would be valued a lot more than QC land. A whole new transfer payment scheme.
Yes. That is what I was thinking. Politicians only need to pass the initial tax through the house of commons and senate. After that, changes to the legislation can be made by the government through the bureaucracy. What would prevent them from expanding the vacant land tax in urban areas to include all land in Canada and even include what politicians define as “underdeveloped” property in urban areas.
Example 1: the single detached home could be turned in a 4 unit building so a 3%* tax will be applied every year for as long as it remains a single detached house. A great way to compel families to sell their homes to politicians developer buddies and move towards the goal of permanent renters instead of middle class property owners.
Example 2: that farmland could be used for more productive purposes (homes, cricket factory, mansions for billionaires, whatever) so a 3%* tax will be charged every year on your underdeveloped land. Which of course would inevitably require farmers, acreages to sell part or all of their land to pay the tax.
* who thinks the tax won’t rapidly escalate. Anyone remember Trudeau’s election promise that the carbon tax would be capped $50 per ton? Of course, like the carbon tax, carve-outs and exemptions will be given to Liberal friendly provinces.
The main reason for stalled housing developments are the interest rate hikes of the last year. How is taxing that land going to speed up the development process?
The main effect will be to drive up the cost of housing even more as developers won’t touch marginal projects out of fear of being hit with a tax bill.
If the tax is 3% of assessed value, that’s a big hit.
We are all kulaks.
Not merely satisfied with being drunk with power. The Marxists are pickling their livers in it. This won’t end well for them either but addicts never care about self harm and avoid mirrors at all cost.
“could be used to fund more construction” bla bla bla.
or much more likely join the 100s of BILLIONS squandered on social engineering.
nuff said. l need a coffee. or a shot of liquor to numb the ‘pain’.
I’d go for the shot
Don’t limit yourself, ILJ. Whip up an Irish coffee and have both.
Hey, there are times when studying Hegel really pays off!
As always, taxes get passed on to the buyer. The taxes will get baked in to the price.
And what is Pierre‘s position on the subject?
Is he gonna demolish it?
I ask.
Shhhhhhhhh!
His fans say he’s being vewy, vewy quiet about things like capital gains increases because that’s the smart thing to do..
Folks still thinking that investing in tier 2 Canada is a good idea?
lol…
My expectations of what is good about tier 2 Canada have fallen so much… I cannot be surprised by a gov’t which floats a 3% tax on something you’re holding and not doing anything with at the moment, and then when you voice dissent they counteroffer at 2% and expect you to be happy as they’ve negotiated with you.
Will farmer’s fields left in fallow for a year be included in this?
By the time this garbage passes the floating stage and parliament, the hideous junior high class president and her pretty boy boss will be in opposition or elsewhere. If the Cons live with it, western separation is the only way out other than emigration.
When this has been tried you get half acre wheat fields in cities.
Maybe 25 years ago there was a funny poster making the rounds. It was a Canadian Simplified Income Tax Form, and it had only two lines:
1. How much money did you make last year?
2. Send it in.
————————-
That poster wouldn’t be funny anymore.
You would think Mr Quantum Physics and his open minded tribe, might have been out ahead of the housing mess?
Which in my opinion is totally corrupt, and intentional.
But we let them get away with it.
Hey, who is the single biggest owner of vacant land in Canada? That would be the Crown. Overall, I think it’s about 90%, isn’t it? They are very strict about providing licenses and permits for development (especially to private citizens). That says nothing for zoning bureaucracy on private land by provisional governments.
You have a pretty solid fundamental basis to fight this in the Courts should it be instituted. And, for the record, the Irish law doesn’t just include vacant lots. They are applying increased property taxes on vacant homes as well. There are some loopholes in the law (property on the market, deaths, illnesses etc.) It seems to me you could put the property up for sale at a ludicrous price and toss the middle finger to the government.
The dearth of private land available for housing is the dirty little secret that is responsible for much of the supply side of the so-called housing crisis which in reality is concentrated in the lower mainland in BC where, provincially less than one percent is privately owned and available for all municipal use including housing, and Toronto which is hemmed in by the green belt. Planners don’t talk about that because they hate urban sprawl and would rather invoke more central planning and a greater communism.
The ☭ planners ☭ brought in green belts to restrict urban sprawl and the result was even greater urban sprawl as people built outside the green belts.
more money , less service
We will tax you to (our) prosperity, peasant.
She considers your savings, “Preloaded Stimilus.”
3yrs ago.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qkTiCrPRTy4
Thats crazy. You know that she was looking for ways to increase taxes on “the rich”. How about no GST. PST on any item over $10000. That will increase spending.
Not one peep from this lard *ssed smugette about cutting gov’t spending which her twerp PM has doubled.
i want a 10 percent fee to the politician for every law they want.
Taxation kills jobs.
Governments of free people know that.
She doesn’t believe Canadians are a free people nor want to be.
Idiot wage-slaves.
She’s right.
“We are sick and tired of people finding ways to make money in Canada and are doing everything we can to put an end to it!”
I knew the farmers were screwing us. Off with their heads! Tax on all of our primary residences and a death tax is coming next if the Liberals get back in.
Uhhh, Isn’t Property already taxed? I pay my taxes every year on the land my house sits on.
Canada is the land of taxes, upon taxes, upon taxes. The Gov wont be satisfied until the marginal tax rate is 100%!!
I remember seeing a t-shirt long time ago that read “I’m from Canada, Tax Me!”
Or the Canadian Income Tax form: “1. How much money did you make this year? 2. Send it to us!”
3% taxation on overweight female finance ministers who keep running deficits.
FOAD you lying skank
I think that if the tax assessor sets some value on your property, you should have the option of saying “sold!” And then they’d have to pay you that amount.