October 3, 2016 | Belle Puri

Quoted from the article:

NDP housing critic David Eby is happy the federal government has decided to collect information to monitor how Canadian real estate markets, including Metro Vancouver’s, can be used and abused by people who want to avoid capital gains taxes. 

“It’s a good news day that the federal government is heading in the right direction,” said Eby. 

“It looks like the government is going to begin collecting the information we need to understand how people might be using our real estate market as an investment instead of as a place to live.” 

There are a couple of initiatives in Ottawa’s announcement of new rules to curb foreign real estate investment that are of particular interest to Eby. 

“I’m grateful they ignored both the premier and the advanced education minister who said there was nothing to see here,” said Eby. 

“The changes they made I’m particularly excited about relate to requiring that when you sell a home you have to report the proceeds from that to the Canada Revenue Agency,” said Eby. 

According to Eby, that reporting is critical for a couple of reasons.

“One is if someone is continually buying and flipping houses in our real estate market, they may no longer be able to claim a capital gain, because it is not a principle residence anymore. It’s actually a business that they’re running.” 

“And, the second reason is we need better data about what’s happening in our real estate market, and it’s only by collecting this information that we can know whether a family is purchasing multiple properties under the names of different family members in order to run an investment style scheme, instead of using the principle residence exemption as it was intended,” said Eby. 

Read the full article:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ndp-housing-critic-pleased-feds-closing-real-estate-loopholes-1.3789153