Taxes

Rising housing prices fuel the growing gap

Sep 19, 2016
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Vancouver is now a “city of millionaires”, according to Environics’ 2016 Wealthscapes report: In B.C., the red-hot real estate market fueled a rise in average net worth, producing Canada’s first “city of millionaires”: Vancouver. In 2015, the average net worth of Vancouver households hit $1,036,202 – an impressive 7.1 percent increase over the previous year. You are forgiven if… View Article

BC should eliminate the MSP. Here are two better options.

Jul 6, 2016
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The MSP has been in the news a lot in recent months, and with good reason: it’s an unfair tax that needs to be eliminated. The BC government announced some reforms to MSP in Budget 2016, in response to mounting pressure from grassroots organizations like the BC Health Coalition, concerned citizens and both opposition parties…. View Article

Affordable housing and its discontents

May 19, 2016
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The public and media response to my new study on affordable housing  exceeded expectations. I anticipated some really strong pushback against my proposals, because they’re pretty radical in today’s context where private sector development is taken for granted, and global capital flows into local real estate go largely unquestioned. By and large, the report was covered… View Article

Housing budget? Not so much.

Feb 17, 2016
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It was supposed to be the housing budget, with action to address a top issue facing the province. Today’s banner headline from The Globe and Mail (“Balanced BC budget aims to cool hot real estate market”) implies that they did take concrete measures. But if you read the budget, there is not much there relative… View Article

What you need to know about BC Budget 2016

Feb 16, 2016
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“The measure of any society is reflected in the degree to which it is willing to help the most vulnerable.” Mike de Jong in the BC Budget 2016 Speech If this is the measure we apply to Budget 2016, then BC is failing miserably. What this budget offers to BC’s most vulnerable is a drop in the bucket…. View Article

What’s wrong with a revenue neutral carbon tax?

Jan 22, 2016
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The political appeal of a revenue neutral carbon tax is clear. The tax provides an incentive to reduce fossil fuel use, and the revenue neutrality — reducing income or other taxes in amounts more or less equal to the amount of carbon tax revenues that the government receives — makes the whole exercise rather painless…. View Article

Province’s bump in home owner grant threshold is not the good deal suggested, especially for Metro Vancouver home owners

Jan 6, 2016
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This week British Columbia’s provincial Finance Minister announced a $100,000 (9.1%) increase in the threshold for the province’s homeowner grant raising it to $1.2 million. There is more to this story than has been reported in the press release or the media. What looks like “tax relief” to homeowners has actually in recent years been… View Article