B.C.’s Speculation Tax notices have gone out to local home owners in the North Okanagan in the last month.
Is this the reason why the hillside around Kalamalka Lake is bristling with For Sale signs this month?
The vacation homes owned here by B.C. and Alberta residents are now subject to this onerous tax that more than doubles the tax amount to be paid for owning such property.
This Speculation Tax is only applicable to a region, if a municipality requests it.
What a temptation to council members: the funds generated by the tax collected in their area come back to that council to support affordable housing. Big bonus!
Or is it?
What message is being sent to potential purchasers of vacation homes in our area? Don’t buy here; find an area without the tax.
Speculation Tax of 0.5 per cent of the market value on an average home in this area will be $4,000-5,000 of after-income-tax money.
For a $3 million home, $15,000.
Sell up here and invest in a holiday home in Whistler, where no Speculation Tax or Vacant Home Tax apply.
Much larger “speculation” returns, and earn a fortune renting the property out short term, a possibility forbidden in Coldstream by local District bylaw.
Keeping a Coldstream vacation home will deplete the discretionary-spending funds with which you used to support the local economy.
One way to evade the tax is to rent a basement suite to a “caretaker” for a nominal charge, against which your property tax, heating and repair costs could now be defrayed, like Whistler owners do.
As an 83-year-old who (foolishly?) chose Coldstream over Whistler for our family vacation home 35 years ago, I object to suddenly being designated as a “speculator.”
Regarding Vernon/Lumby electoral district, it seems illogical that part of it pays a tax and part does not.
If Speculation Tax is not applied to the most speculation-driven vacation area of the province (Whistler), it should not apply anywhere else.
But then democratic principles seem to be a disappearing entity in our current world.
Anthony Walter
